Technically, he's asking for a combination, which would be (x choose y) which is x!/y!(x-y)! (number of combinations) instead of x!/(x-y)! (number of permutations, in which order counts)
So if there are 7 numbers in the original list, and you need 6 of them, it's 7!/6!(7-6)! = 7!/6! * 1! = 7!/6! = 7 for 7 numbers, choose 5 7 choose 5 = 7!/5!(7-5)! = 7!/5!*2! = 7 * 6 / 2 = 7 * 3 = 21 Hopefully, that made some sense. I missed that part in my original post. --Ben Doom Christopher Jordan wrote: > I'm curious why in your case 1,2,3,4,5,6 is considered to be the same as > 1,2,3,4,6,5? I was going to suggest that you use n! to figure out how many > possible permutations of the string there were, but that wouldn't work given > your requirements. > > Chris > > > On 9/25/07, Ken Fassman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hi, >> I have a problem I'm struggling to solve in ColdFusion - I wonder if >> someone >> can help me with. >> >> I am being given a variable length, numeric string (min 6, max 20). I >> need >> to show all combinations of those values that will result in a unique set >> of >> 6. The resulting output is sorted - so 1,2,3,4,5,6 is the same as >> 1,2,3,4,6,5. >> >> I'd also like to see if there is an easy way to calculate the expected >> number of each in advance. >> >> Just to illustrate what I'm looking to do (in case its not clear from >> above): >> >> The input string might be "1,2,3,4,5,6,7" and I'd need to return the >> following results: >> 123456 >> 123457 >> 123467 >> 123567 >> 124567 >> 134567 >> 234567 >> >> >> Any thoughts on this on how to approach this are greatly appreciated. >> >> Thanks! >> >> - KsF >> >> >> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Download the latest ColdFusion 8 utilities including Report Builder, plug-ins for Eclipse and Dreamweaver updates. http;//www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5adobecf8%5Fbeta Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:289447 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
