该算法是最有效的算法，它避免了递归调用中的数组传递和操作，适用于Python 2、3：

def permute(items):
    length = len(items)
    def inner(ix=[]):
        do_yield = len(ix) == length - 1
        for i in range(0, length):
            if i in ix: #avoid duplicates
                continue
            if do_yield:
                yield tuple([items[y] for y in ix + [i]])
            else:
                for p in inner(ix + [i]):
                    yield p
    return inner()

用法：

for p in permute((1,2,3)):
    print(p)

(1, 2, 3)
(1, 3, 2)
(2, 1, 3)
(2, 3, 1)
(3, 1, 2)
(3, 2, 1)

功能性风格

def addperm(x,l):
    return [ l[0:i] + [x] + l[i:]  for i in range(len(l)+1) ]

def perm(l):
    if len(l) == 0:
        return [[]]
    return [x for y in perm(l[1:]) for x in addperm(l[0],y) ]

print perm([ i for i in range(3)])

结果：

[[0, 1, 2], [1, 0, 2], [1, 2, 0], [0, 2, 1], [2, 0, 1], [2, 1, 0]]

list2Perm = [1, 2.0, 'three']
listPerm = [[a, b, c]
            for a in list2Perm
            for b in list2Perm
            for c in list2Perm
            if ( a != b and b != c and a != c )
            ]
print listPerm

输出：

[
    [1, 2.0, 'three'], 
    [1, 'three', 2.0], 
    [2.0, 1, 'three'], 
    [2.0, 'three', 1], 
    ['three', 1, 2.0], 
    ['three', 2.0, 1]
]

此解决方案实现了一个生成器，以避免在内存中保留所有排列：

def permutations (orig_list):
    if not isinstance(orig_list, list):
        orig_list = list(orig_list)

    yield orig_list

    if len(orig_list) == 1:
        return

    for n in sorted(orig_list):
        new_list = orig_list[:]
        pos = new_list.index(n)
        del(new_list[pos])
        new_list.insert(0, n)
        for resto in permutations(new_list[1:]):
            if new_list[:1] + resto <> orig_list:
                yield new_list[:1] + resto

#!/usr/bin/env python

def perm(a, k=0):
   if k == len(a):
      print a
   else:
      for i in xrange(k, len(a)):
         a[k], a[i] = a[i] ,a[k]
         perm(a, k+1)
         a[k], a[i] = a[i], a[k]

perm([1,2,3])

输出：

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

当我交换列表的内容时，需要一个可变的序列类型作为输入。例如，烫发（list（“ball”）会起作用，而烫发（“ball”）不会起作用，因为你不能更改字符串。

这种Python实现的灵感来自Horowitz、Sahni和Rajasekeran在《计算机算法》一书中提出的算法。

使用标准库中的itertools.permutations：

import itertools
list(itertools.permutations([1, 2, 3]))

从这里改编的是itertools.permutations如何实现的演示：

def permutations(elements):
    if len(elements) <= 1:
        yield elements
        return
    for perm in permutations(elements[1:]):
        for i in range(len(elements)):
            # nb elements[0:1] works in both string and list contexts
            yield perm[:i] + elements[0:1] + perm[i:]

itertools.permutations文档中列出了两种替代方法

def permutations(iterable, r=None):
    # permutations('ABCD', 2) --> AB AC AD BA BC BD CA CB CD DA DB DC
    # permutations(range(3)) --> 012 021 102 120 201 210
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    r = n if r is None else r
    if r > n:
        return
    indices = range(n)
    cycles = range(n, n-r, -1)
    yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices[:r])
    while n:
        for i in reversed(range(r)):
            cycles[i] -= 1
            if cycles[i] == 0:
                indices[i:] = indices[i+1:] + indices[i:i+1]
                cycles[i] = n - i
            else:
                j = cycles[i]
                indices[i], indices[-j] = indices[-j], indices[i]
                yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices[:r])
                break
        else:
            return

另一个基于itertools.product：

def permutations(iterable, r=None):
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    r = n if r is None else r
    for indices in product(range(n), repeat=r):
        if len(set(indices)) == r:
            yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices)