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up vote 5 down vote favorite
4

I'im trying to find all combinations of items in several arrays. The number of arrays is random (this can be 2, 3, 4, 5...). The number of elements in each array is random too...

For exemple, I have the 3 arrays :

$arrayA = array('A1','A2','A3');
$arrayB = array('B1','B2','B3');
$arrayC = array('C1','C2');

I would like to generate an array with 3 x 3 x 2 = 18 combinations :

  • A1, B1, C1
  • A1, B1, C2
  • A1, B2, C1
  • A1, B2, C2
  • A1, B3, C1
  • A1, B3, C2
  • A2, B1, C1
  • A2, B1, C2 ...

The problem is to create a function with a variable number of source arrays...

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You always want one element from each array? –  rambo coder Dec 19 '11 at 20:30
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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Here is recursive solution:

function combinations($arrays, $i = 0) {
    if (!isset($arrays[$i])) {
        return array();
    }
    if ($i == count($arrays) - 1) {
        return $arrays[$i];
    }

    // get combinations from subsequent arrays
    $tmp = combinations($arrays, $i + 1);

    $result = array();

    // concat each array from tmp with each element from $arrays[$i]
    foreach ($arrays[$i] as $v) {
        foreach ($tmp as $t) {
            $result[] = is_array($t) ? 
                array_merge(array($v), $t) :
                array($v, $t);
        }
    }

    return $result;
}

print_r(
    combinations(
        array(
            array('A1','A2','A3'), 
            array('B1','B2','B3'), 
            array('C1','C2')
        )
    )
);
share|improve this answer
    
how should I change this function if I want the unique combinations for duplicated arrays? For instance, if I have array('A1','A2','A3'), array('A1','A2','A3'), array('C1','C2') and I want as result "A1, A2, C1", "A1, A3, C1", etc, but NO "A1, A1, C1" ? Also (if I'm not asking too much ;) , {"A1", "A2", "C1"} it's the same that {"A2", "A1", "C1"} so I only want 1 combination? –  Alex Angelico May 30 '13 at 1:23
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up vote 6 down vote

This is a cartesian product, and I just asked the same question not too long ago. Here is the algorithm that is posted on the PHP website.

function array_cartesian_product($arrays)
{
    $result = array();
    $arrays = array_values($arrays);
    $sizeIn = sizeof($arrays);
    $size = $sizeIn > 0 ? 1 : 0;
    foreach ($arrays as $array)
        $size = $size * sizeof($array);
    for ($i = 0; $i < $size; $i ++)
    {
        $result[$i] = array();
        for ($j = 0; $j < $sizeIn; $j ++)
            array_push($result[$i], current($arrays[$j]));
        for ($j = ($sizeIn -1); $j >= 0; $j --)
        {
            if (next($arrays[$j]))
                break;
            elseif (isset ($arrays[$j]))
                reset($arrays[$j]);
        }
    }
    return $result;
}
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