How to get all the possible combinations of elements in a matrix, but don't allow exchange of elements inbetween columns? - matlab

Question

Lets say I have this matrice A: [3 x 4]
1 4 7 10
2 5 8 11
3 6 9 12
I want to permute the element of in each column, but they can't change to a different column, so 1 2 3 need to always be part of the first column. So for exemple I want:
3 4 8 10
1 5 7 11
2 6 9 12
3 4 8 11
1 6 7 10
2 5 9 12
1 6 9 11
. . . .
So in one matrix I would like to have all the possible permutation, in this case, there are 3 different choices 3x3x3x3=81possibilities.So my result matrixe should be 81x4, because I only need each time one [1x4]line vector answer, and that 81 time.
An other way to as the question would be (for the same end for me), would be, if I have 4 column vector:
a=[1;2;3]
b=[4;5;6]
c=[7;8;9]
d=[10;11;12;13]
Compare to my previous exemple, each column vector can have a different number of row. Then is like I have 4 boxes, A, B C, D and I can only put one element of a in A, b in B and so on; so I would like to get all the permutation possible with the answer [A B C D] beeing a [1x4] row, and in this case, I would have 3x3x3x4=108 different row. So where I have been missunderstood (my fault), is that I don't want all the different [3x4] matrix answers but just [1x4]lines.
so in this case the answer would be:
1 4 7 10
and 1 4 7 11
and 1 4 7 12
and 1 4 7 13
and 2 4 8 10
and ...
until there are the 108 combinations
The fonction perms in Matlab can't do that since I don't want to permute all the matrix (and btw, this is already a too big matrix to do so).
So do you have any idea how I could do this or is there is a fonction which can do that? I, off course, also could have matrix which have different size. Thank you

Answer 1

Basically you want to get all combinations of 4x the permutations of 1:3.
You could generate these with combvec from the Neural Networks Toolbox (like #brainkz did), or with permn from the File Exchange.
After that it's a matter of managing indices, applying sub2ind (with the correct column index) and rearranging until everything is in the order you want.
a = [1 4 7 10
2 5 8 11
3 6 9 12];
siz = size(a);
perm1 = perms(1:siz(1));
Nperm1 = size(perm1,1); % = factorial(siz(1))
perm2 = permn(1:Nperm1, siz(2) );
Nperm2 = size(perm2,1);
permidx = reshape(perm1(perm2,:)', [Nperm2 siz(1), siz(2)]); % reshape unnecessary, easier for debugging
col_base_idx = 1:siz(2);
col_idx = col_base_idx(ones(Nperm2*siz(1) ,1),:);
lin_idx = reshape(sub2ind(size(a), permidx(:), col_idx(:)), [Nperm2*siz(1) siz(2)]);
result = a(lin_idx);
This avoids any loops or cell concatenation and uses straigh indexing instead.
Permutations per column, unique rows
Same method:
siz = size(a);
permidx = permn(1:siz(1), siz(2) );
Npermidx = size(permidx, 1);
col_base_idx = 1:siz(2);
col_idx = col_base_idx(ones(Npermidx, 1),:);
lin_idx = reshape(sub2ind(size(a), permidx(:), col_idx(:)), [Npermidx siz(2)]);
result = a(lin_idx);

Answer 2

Your question appeared to be a very interesting brain-teaser. I suggest the following:
in = [1,2,3;4,5,6;7,8,9;10,11,12]';
b = perms(1:3);
a = 1:size(b,1);
c = combvec(a,a,a,a);
for k = 1:length(c(1,:))
out{k} = [in(b(c(1,k),:),1),in(b(c(2,k),:),2),in(b(c(3,k),:),3),in(b(c(4,k),:),4)];
end
%and if you want your result as an ordinary array:
out = vertcat(out{:});
b is a 6x3 array that contains all possible permutations of [1,2,3]. c is 4x1296 array that contains all possible combinations of elements in a = 1:6. In the for loop we use number from 1 to 6 to get the permutation in b, and that permutation is used as indices to the column.
Hope that helps

Answer 3

this is another octave friendly solution:
function result = Tuples(A)
[P,n]= size(A);
M = reshape(repmat(1:P, 1, P ^(n-1)), repmat(P, 1, n));
result = zeros(P^ n, n);
for i = 1:n
result(:, i) = A(reshape(permute(M, circshift((1:n)', i)), P ^ n, 1), i);
end
end
%%%example
A = [...
1 4 7 10;...
2 5 8 11;...
3 6 9 12];
result = Tuples(A)
Update:
Question updated that: given n vectors of different length generates a list of all possible tuples whose ith element is from vector i:
function result = Tuples( A)
if exist('repelem') ==0
repelem = #(v,n) repelems(v,[1:numel(v);n]);
end
n = numel(A);
siz = [ cell2mat(cellfun(#numel, A , 'UniformOutput', false))];
tot_prd = prod(siz);
cum_prd=cumprod(siz);
tot_cum = tot_prd ./ cum_prd;
cum_siz = cum_prd ./ siz;
result = zeros(tot_prd, n);
for i = 1: n
result(:, i) = repmat(repelem(A{i},repmat(tot_cum(i),1,siz(i))) ,1,cum_siz(i));
end
end
%%%%example
a = {...
[1;2;3],...
[4;5;6],...
[7;8;9],...
[10;11;12;13]...
};
result =Tuples(a)

Answer 4

This is a little complicated but it works without the need for any additional toolboxes:
You basically want a b element 'truth table' which you can generate like this (adapted from here) if you were applying it to each element:
[b, n] = size(A)
truthtable = dec2base(0:power(b,n)-1, b) - '0'
Now you need to convert the truth table to linear indexes by adding the column number times the total number of rows:
idx = bsxfun(#plus, b*(0:n-1)+1, truthtable)
now you instead of applying this truth table to each element you actually want to apply it to each permutation. There are 6 permutations so b becomes 6. The trick is to then create a 6-by-1 cell array where each element has a distinct permutation of [1,2,3] and then apply the truth table idea to that:
[m,n] = size(A);
b = factorial(m);
permutations = reshape(perms(1:m)',[],1);
permCell = mat2cell(permutations,ones(b,1)*m,1);
truthtable = dec2base(0:power(b,n)-1, b) - '0';
expandedTT = cell2mat(permCell(truthtable + 1));
idx = bsxfun(#plus, m*(0:n-1), expandedTT);
A(idx)

Answer 5

Another answer. Rather specific just to demonstrate the concept, but can easily be adapted.
A = [1,4,7,10;2,5,8,11;3,6,9,12];
P = perms(1:3)'
[X,Y,Z,W] = ndgrid(1:6,1:6,1:6,1:6);
You now have 1296 permutations. If you wanted to access, say, the 400th one:
Permutation_within_column = [P(:,X(400)), P(:,Y(400)), P(:,Z(400)), P(:,W(400))];
ColumnOffset = repmat([0:3]*3,[3,1])
My_permutation = Permutation_within_column + ColumnOffset; % results in valid linear indices
A(My_permutation)
This approach allows you to obtain the 400th permutation on demand; if you prefer to have all possible permutations concatenated in the 3rd dimension, (i.e. a 3x4x1296 matrix), you can either do this with a for loop, or simply adapt the above and vectorise; for example, if you wanted to create a 3x4x2 matrix holding the first two permutations along the 3rd dimension:
Permutations_within_columns = reshape(P(:,X(1:2)),3,1,[]);
Permutations_within_columns = cat(2, Permutations_within_columns, reshape(P(:,Y(1:2)),3,1,[]));
Permutations_within_columns = cat(2, Permutations_within_columns, reshape(P(:,Z(1:2)),3,1,[]));
Permutations_within_columns = cat(2, Permutations_within_columns, reshape(P(:,W(1:2)),3,1,[]));
ColumnOffsets = repmat([0:3]*3,[3,1,2]);
My_permutations = Permutations_within_columns + ColumnOffsets;
A(My_permutations)
This approach enables you to collect a specific subrange, which may be useful if available memory is a concern (i.e. for larger matrices) and you'd prefer to perform your operations by blocks. If memory isn't a concern you can get all 1296 permutations at once in one giant matrix if you wish; just adapt as appropriate (e.g. replicate ColumnOffsets the right number of times in the 3rd dimension)