Question

I need to generate every possible combination from a given charset to a given range.
Like,

charset=list(map(str,"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"))
range=10

And the out put should be,

[a,b,c,d..................,zzzzzzzzzy,zzzzzzzzzz]

I know I can do this using already in use libraries.But I need to know how they really works.If anyone can give me a commented code of this kind of algorithm in Python or any programming language readable,I would be very grateful.

Answer 1

If you REALLY want to brute force it, try this, but it will take you a ridiculous amount of time:

your_list = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
complete_list = []
for current in xrange(10):
    a = [i for i in your_list]
    for y in xrange(current):
        a = [x+i for i in your_list for x in a]
    complete_list = complete_list+a

On a smaller example, where list = ‘ab’ and we only go up to 5, this prints the following:

['a', 'b', 'aa', 'ba', 'ab', 'bb', 'aaa', 'baa', 'aba', 'bba', 'aab', 'bab', 'abb', 'bbb', 'aaaa', 'baaa', 'abaa', 'bbaa', 'aaba', 'baba', 'abba', 'bbba', 'aaab', 'baab', 'abab', 'bbab', 'aabb', 'babb', 'abbb', 'bbbb', 'aaaaa', 'baaaa', 'abaaa', 'bbaaa', 'aabaa', 'babaa', 'abbaa', 'bbbaa', 'aaaba','baaba', 'ababa', 'bbaba', 'aabba', 'babba', 'abbba', 'bbbba', 'aaaab', 'baaab', 'abaab', 'bbaab', 'aabab', 'babab', 'abbab', 'bbbab', 'aaabb', 'baabb', 'ababb', 'bbabb', 'aabbb', 'babbb', 'abbbb', 'bbbbb']