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Thread: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

  1. #1
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    Default Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    Hi i'm doing a simple translation program built from a a glossary and some statistic from a corpus.
    Now i have realized that to get my program to work i need a algorithm that can get all the possible combinations from a N*M array.

    EX:
    [1(A1,A2,A3,......,An),2(B1,B2,B3,......,Bn),3(C1,C 2,C3,......,Cn),........N(N1,N2,N3,......,Nn)]

    I haven't been able to solve this and would really need some help.


  2. #2
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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    With a N*M array are there N*M different elements and (N*M)! different combinations?
    If you don't understand my answer, don't ignore it, ask a question.

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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    Sry if i wasn't clear enough. The first array have a unknown amount of arrays in it and everyone of those arrays have an unknown amount of string in them.

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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    I don't know how to solve the problem then if all the values are unknown.
    All arrays in java are defined with a fixed size. They need not be full, but some how you can determine how many elements they contain.
    If you don't understand my answer, don't ignore it, ask a question.

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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    I think i explained badly again i need the algorithm to work for any amount of values but i will know how many there are for every iteration. For an example
    if i need to translate how are you then every word have a couple of different translations that i get from a glossary so the array will be [(all translations of how),(all translation of are),(all translation of you)] .

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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    Don't see where the talk of combinations comes from. Here is an example of what I thought combinations could be: Given the letters: A,B,C you would get: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA

    Can you give a simple concrete example of what you are looking for?
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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    ok with just two words the sentence in swedish "jag är" translates correctly in english to "I am" but if you look it up in a glossery every word will have more then one translation so "jag" can be translated to "I" and "ego" and "är" can be translated to "am", "are" and "is" so the array will look like this:
    [("i","ego"),("am","are","is")]
    the possible combinations are:
    I am
    I are
    I is
    ego am
    ego are
    ego is

    Then the program will use some statistic to compare the different sentences and hopefully it will get the right one most of the time.

    In this case the word did't have that many translation and it was a short sentence but the problem is of course that this can vary alot.

    I hope the example is enough and i really appreciate that you are trying to help me.

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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    Looks like a recursive method could do that. Pass it the array of arrays and have it extract one from each sub array and build the output string.
    If you don't understand my answer, don't ignore it, ask a question.

  9. The Following User Says Thank You to Norm For This Useful Post:

    affebaffe (December 3rd, 2012)

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    Default Re: Algorithm for all possible combinations?

    thx it worked perfectly!!!

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