Mark Dickinson-2 wrote: > > > This is a well-known trick: to divide 5 (unlabeled) balls amongst 3 > (labeled) boxes, you write down sequences of 5 o's and 2 x's, where > the o's represent the 5 balls and the 'x's represent dividers: > > ooxooxo -> [2, 2, 1] > xoooxoo -> [0, 3, 2] > > And 'combinations(7, 2)' yields successively all the possible > different placements for the 2 dividers in the 7 symbols. > > > This question seems to come up often enough (without the box size > limit twist) that maybe it would be useful to include something like > this recipe in the itertool documentation. > > > For getting this into itertools, I'd suggest opening a feature request > on bugs.python.org and assigning it to Raymond Hettinger. > > -- > Mark > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > >
You are correct--the case without capacity limits can be handled using the existing machinery in `itertools`. BTW--That trick with the dividers is discussed on page 38 of William Feller's classic text, "An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications". As per your suggestion, I have opened a feature request and assigned it to Raymond. Thanks! -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/recursive-algorithm-for-balls-in-numbered-boxes-tp32440187p32449079.html Sent from the Python - python-list mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
