以下是我在《破解编程面试》(P54)一书中提出的解决方案:

/**
 * List permutations of a string.
 * 
 * @param s the input string
 * @return  the list of permutations
 */
public static ArrayList<String> permutation(String s) {
    // The result
    ArrayList<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
    // If input string's length is 1, return {s}
    if (s.length() == 1) {
        res.add(s);
    } else if (s.length() > 1) {
        int lastIndex = s.length() - 1;
        // Find out the last character
        String last = s.substring(lastIndex);
        // Rest of the string
        String rest = s.substring(0, lastIndex);
        // Perform permutation on the rest string and
        // merge with the last character
        res = merge(permutation(rest), last);
    }
    return res;
}

/**
 * @param list a result of permutation, e.g. {"ab", "ba"}
 * @param c    the last character
 * @return     a merged new list, e.g. {"cab", "acb" ... }
 */
public static ArrayList<String> merge(ArrayList<String> list, String c) {
    ArrayList<String> res = new ArrayList<>();
    // Loop through all the string in the list
    for (String s : list) {
        // For each string, insert the last character to all possible positions
        // and add them to the new list
        for (int i = 0; i <= s.length(); ++i) {
            String ps = new StringBuffer(s).insert(i, c).toString();
            res.add(ps);
        }
    }
    return res;
}

字符串"abcd"的运行输出:

第一步:合并[a]和b: [ba, ab] 步骤2:Merge [ba, ab]和c: [cba, bca, bac, cab, acb, abc] 第三步:Merge [cba, bca, bac, cab, acb, abc]和d: [dcba, cdba, cbad, cbca, bdcad

//插入每个字符到数组列表中

static ArrayList al = new ArrayList();

private static void findPermutation (String str){
    for (int k = 0; k < str.length(); k++) {
        addOneChar(str.charAt(k));
    }
}

//insert one char into ArrayList
private static void addOneChar(char ch){
    String lastPerStr;
    String tempStr;
    ArrayList locAl = new ArrayList();
    for (int i = 0; i < al.size(); i ++ ){
        lastPerStr = al.get(i).toString();
        //System.out.println("lastPerStr: " + lastPerStr);
        for (int j = 0; j <= lastPerStr.length(); j++) {
            tempStr = lastPerStr.substring(0,j) + ch + 
                    lastPerStr.substring(j, lastPerStr.length());
            locAl.add(tempStr);
            //System.out.println("tempStr: " + tempStr);
        }
    }
    if(al.isEmpty()){
        al.add(ch);
    } else {
        al.clear();
        al = locAl;
    }
}

private static void printArrayList(ArrayList al){
    for (int i = 0; i < al.size(); i++) {
        System.out.print(al.get(i) + "  ");
    }
}

没有递归的Java实现

public Set<String> permutate(String s){
    Queue<String> permutations = new LinkedList<String>();
    Set<String> v = new HashSet<String>();
    permutations.add(s);

    while(permutations.size()!=0){
        String str = permutations.poll();
        if(!v.contains(str)){
            v.add(str);
            for(int i = 0;i<str.length();i++){
                String c = String.valueOf(str.charAt(i));
                permutations.add(str.substring(i+1) + c +  str.substring(0,i));
            }
        }
    }
    return v;
}

Java中一个非常基本的解决方案是使用递归+设置(以避免重复)，如果你想存储和返回解决方案字符串:

public static Set<String> generatePerm(String input)
{
    Set<String> set = new HashSet<String>();
    if (input == "")
        return set;

    Character a = input.charAt(0);

    if (input.length() > 1)
    {
        input = input.substring(1);

        Set<String> permSet = generatePerm(input);

        for (String x : permSet)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i <= x.length(); i++)
            {
                set.add(x.substring(0, i) + a + x.substring(i));
            }
        }
    }
    else
    {
        set.add(a + "");
    }
    return set;
}

python实现

def getPermutation(s, prefix=''):
        if len(s) == 0:
                print prefix
        for i in range(len(s)):
                getPermutation(s[0:i]+s[i+1:len(s)],prefix+s[i] )



getPermutation('abcd','')

简单的解决方案，利用swift语言的特点，数组是值类型。

func permutation(chrs: [String], arr: [String], result: inout [[String]]) {
   if arr.count == chrs.count {
       result.append(arr)
       return
   }

   for chr in chrs {
       var arr = arr
       if !arr.contains(chr) {
           arr.append(chr)
           permutation(chrs: chrs, arr: arr, result: &result)
       }
   }
}

func test() {
   var result = [[String]]()
   let chrs = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]
   permutation(chrs: chrs, arr: [], result: &result)
}

复杂度O(n * n!)