On Mar 27, 8:15 am, Grimsqueaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, I'm fairly new to Python and to this list. I have a problem that > is driving me insane, sorry if it seems simple to everyone, I've been > fighting with it for a while. :)) > > I want to take a variable length string and use it as a base for > counting, eg. given the string 'abc' the sequence would be: > > a > b > c > aa > ba > ca > ab > bb > cb > ... > ccc > > Basically I want to find every possible order of every combination. > Its easy if you know how many characters there will be in your string > (use nested for loops), but I am stuck with the variable length > string. I think I have to use a generator but I'm not sure exactly > how. > > Can anyone give me a pointer in the right direction? > > Thanks > Daniel Browne
Since you didn't ask for the smallest solution I'll opt for the clearest one ;) I'll use the very usefull baseconvert, http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/111286 def baseconvert(number, fromdigits, todigits): if str(number)[0] == '-': number = str(number)[1:] neg = 1 else: neg = 0 # make an integer out of the number x = long(0) for digit in str(number): x = x * len(fromdigits) + fromdigits.index(digit) # create the result in base 'len(todigits)' res = '' if x == 0: res = todigits[0] while x > 0: digit = x % len(todigits) res = todigits[digit] + res x /= len(todigits) if neg: res = '-' + res return res BASE10 = '0123456789' s = 'abcdef' n = len(s) for i in xrange(n**n): print baseconvert(str(i), BASE10, s) You can also convert back, baseconvert('abaa', s, BASE10). Hope it helps. Regards, Louis. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
