From: Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia@...>
Date: 2002-12-11T11:29:19+09:00
Subject: Implementing combinatorics

Rubyists,
Has anyone implemented combinatorics on Ruby before?
i.e.
Given a list;
	L = [x1,x2,x3....xn]
What is the total number of combinations that we can produce?

Rudimentary discrete math combinatorics theory tells us that it is: 2**n

e.g. L = [1,2,3]

[]
[1]
[1,2]
[1,2,3]
[1,3]
[2]
[2,3]
[3]

Some questions that I have:
1. Has anybody implemented this in Ruby? How would you do it?
2. Any advantage for an iterative algorithm over a recursive one?
3. Is Ruby really suitable for these type of work as opposed to say a 
Lisp variant, like Ocaml?

TIA.

-- 
Wai-Sun "Squidster" Chia
Consulting & Integration
Linux/Unix/Web Developer Dude
"Just Another Ruby Miner"