ctci/08. Recursion/8.4. Power set.md

45 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown

# 8.4. Power set
> Write a method that returns all subsets of a set
```python
def power_set(lst, subsets=[]):
for el in lst:
if len(el) > 0:
subsets.extend(power_set(el, subsets))
subsets.append(lst)
return subsets
lst = [1, 2, [3, 4], [[5], [6,7]]]
subsets = power_set(lst)
```
## Hints
I understood the problem wrong.
* If you have {a, b}, all the subsets are: a, b, ab
* If you have {a, b, c}, all the subsets are: [a, b, ab], c, ac, bc, abc
* If you have {a, b, c, d}, all the subsets are: [a, b, ab, c, ac, bc, abc], ad, bd, cd, abd, acd, bcd, abcd.
For any new letter, add the last letter to all the subsets and append.
> You can also map each subset to a binary number, the `i`th bit could represent a 'boolean' flag for whether an element is in the set.
I can also use a python set.
```python
def power_set(lst):
subsets = set()
subsets.add(lst[0])
for el in lst:
for subs in subsets:
subsets.add(subs + el)
subsets.add(el)
return subsets
power_set([1, 2, 3, 4])
```
The complexity of this algorithm is O(n * 2^n) in space and time.