Matlab: How to enumerate the possible ways of forming pairs from a list - matlab

Question

Suppose I have a list of length 2k, say {1,2,...,2k}. The number of possible ways of grouping the 2k numbers into k (unordered) pairs is n(k) = 1*3* ... *(2k-1). So for k=2, we have the following three different ways of forming 2 pairs
(1 2)(3 4)
(1 3)(2 4)
(1 4)(2 3)
How can I use Matlab to create the above list, i.e., create a matrix of n(k)*(2k) such that each row contains a different way of grouping the list of 2k numbers into k pairs.

Answer 1

clear
k = 3;
set = 1: 2*k;
p = perms(set); % get all possible permutations
% sort each two column
[~, col] = size(p);
for i = 1: 2: col
p(:, i:i+1) = sort(p(:,i:i+1), 2);
end
p = unique(p, 'rows'); % remove the same row
% sort each row
[row, col] = size(p);
for i = 1: row
temp = reshape(p(i,:), 2, col/2)';
temp = sortrows(temp, 1);
p(i,:) = reshape(temp', 1, col);
end
pairs = unique(p, 'rows'); % remove the same row
pairs =
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 5 4 6
1 2 3 6 4 5
1 3 2 4 5 6
1 3 2 5 4 6
1 3 2 6 4 5
1 4 2 3 5 6
1 4 2 5 3 6
1 4 2 6 3 5
1 5 2 3 4 6
1 5 2 4 3 6
1 5 2 6 3 4
1 6 2 3 4 5
1 6 2 4 3 5
1 6 2 5 3 4
As someone think my former answer is not useful, i post this.

Answer 2

I have the following brute force way of enumerating the pairs. Not particularly efficient. It can also cause memory problem when k>9. In that case, I can just enumerate but not create Z and store the result in it.
function Z = pair2(k)
count = [2*k-1:-2:3];
tcount = prod(count);
Z = zeros(tcount,2*k);
x = [ones(1,k-2) 0];
z = zeros(1,2*k);
for i=1:tcount
for j=k-1:-1:1
if x(j)<count(j)
x(j) = x(j)+1;
break
end
x(j) = 1;
end
y = [1:2*k];
for j=1:k-1
z(2*j-1) = y(1);
z(2*j) = y(x(j)+1);
y([1 x(j)+1]) = [];
end
z(2*k-1:2*k) = y;
Z(i,:) = z;
end

Answer 3

k = 3;
set = 1: 2*k;
combos = combntns(set, k);
[len, ~] = size(combos);
pairs = [combos(1:len/2,:) flip(combos(len/2+1:end,:))];
pairs =
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 4 3 5 6
1 2 5 3 4 6
1 2 6 3 4 5
1 3 4 2 5 6
1 3 5 2 4 6
1 3 6 2 4 5
1 4 5 2 3 6
1 4 6 2 3 5
1 5 6 2 3 4
You can also use nchoosek instead of combntns. See more at combntns or nchoosek