Question

This question is about this topic:
Vb.net all combinations

Question:
I use this code for my application but i’ve got a problem.
The chance exists that i have much items which has to be combinated.

But i just want to show the first 10 combinations/results.

What i want is the text to be completely unique.

so the example at my topic you see in the beginning of this question there’s an ape cow deer … example.
It doesn’t matter here.

but if i got something like this:

• 1|2|3|4|5
• 6|7|8|9
• 3|2|1
• 0|9|8|7|6|5

( sometimes it’s even bigger )

the first 10 results are:

• 1-6-3-0
• 1-6-3-9
• 1-6-3-8
• 1-6-3-7
• 1-6-3-6
• 1-6-3-5
• 1-6-2-0
• 1-6-2-9
• 1-6-2-8
• 1-6-2-7

but they are almost the same.

i want the first 10 results to be something like this then:

• 1-8-1-6
• 3-6-1-5
• 4-8-3-0
• etc…

Is this possible??

Answer 1

Here is my solution that I converted from c# using http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/convert/csharp-to-vb/:

Dim numbers = New Integer()() { _
    New Integer() {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, _
    New Integer() {6, 7, 8, 9}, _
    New Integer() {3, 2, 1}, _
    New Integer() {0, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5} _
}
Dim random = New Random()
Dim codes = New HashSet(Of String)()
Dim newCode As String

For resultNr As Integer = 0 To 9
    ' Try to generate random codes until a non exisiting one is found.
    Do
        Dim sb = New StringBuilder()
        For i As Integer = 0 To 3
            Dim r As Integer = random.[Next](numbers(i).Length)
            sb.Append(numbers(i)(r)).Append("-")
        Next
        sb.Length -= 1
        newCode = sb.ToString()
    Loop While codes.Contains(newCode)
    codes.Add(newCode)
    Console.WriteLine(newCode)
Next
Console.ReadKey()