rearrange string

let's say I have a string like

'abdc'

I would like to return every possible arrangement of that string. Like boxing a lottery number.

so the result would be something like

array('abcd',

'acdb',

'acbd',

'adbc',

'adcb',

and so on

)

Is there an easy way to do this, or will have just have use like a ton of loops to make it work? it doesn't not have to be in any special order. i just needs to return all possible configurations of the string.

Thanks in advance.

P

http://home.bolink.org/ebooks/webP/pcook/ch04_26.htm

i've had to use that once, and it works pretty well.

Its called permutations. I got this from the net, cant remember where. I  used it to make a lotto blaster and it works great.

<?php
$str = '1234';

function permutations($letters,$num){
    $last = str_repeat($letters{0},$num);
    $result = array();
    while($last != str_repeat(lastchar($letters),$num)){
        $result[] = $last;
        $last = char_add($letters,$last,$num-1);
    }
    $result[] = $last;
    return $result;
}
function char_add($digits,$string,$char){
    if($string{$char} <> lastchar($digits)){
        $string{$char} = $digits{strpos($digits,$string{$char})+1};
        return $string;
    }else{
        $string = changeall($string,$digits{0},$char);
        return char_add($digits,$string,$char-1);
    }
}
function lastchar($string){
    return $string{strlen($string)-1};
}
function changeall($string,$char,$start = 0,$end = 0){
    if($end == 0) $end = strlen($string)-1;
    for($i=$start;$i<=$end;$i++){
        $string{$i} = $char;
    }
    return $string;
}
?>

To use this Generator you can do something like this :

<?
$Array=permutations("$str",3);
for($i=0 ; $i < count($Array) ; $i++) {
        echo "<br>$Array[$i]";
//echo "<br>$i::$Array[$i]";
}
echo "<br>There were $i permutations found!";
?>

HTH

Teamatomic