Talk:Factorial base numbers indexing permutations of a collection

Mojibake and misspellings

(As the task description is fairly difficult to read as it stands, I took a shot at revising it slightly, correcting misspellings and translating the erroneous Windows-1252->utf8 mojibake)

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You need a random arrangement of a deck of cards, you are sick of lame ways of doing this.

This task is a super-cool way of doing this using factorial base numbers.

The first 25 factorial base numbers in increasing order are:

0.0.0, 0.0.1, 0.1.0, 0.1.1, 0.2.0, 0.2.1, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.2.0, 1.2.1, 2.0.0, 2.0.1, 2.1.0, 2.1.1, 2.2.0, 2.2.1, 3.0.0, 3.0.1, 3.1.0, 3.1.1, 3.2.0, 3.2.1, 1.0.0.0

Observe that the least significant digit is base 2, the next; base 3, and so on. In general, an n-digit factorial base number will use the digits 0..n in base n+1 for each place 1..n (from least to most significant.)

It is simple to produce a 1 to 1 mapping between an n digit factorial base number and permutations of an n+1 element array:

      0.0.0 -> 0123
      0.0.1 -> 0132
      0.1.0 -> 0213
      0.1.1 -> 0231
      0.2.0 -> 0312
      0.2.1 -> 0321
      1.0.0 -> 1023
      1.0.1 -> 1032
      1.1.0 -> 1203
      1.1.1 -> 1230
      1.2.0 -> 1302
      1.2.1 -> 1320
      2.0.0 -> 2013
      2.0.1 -> 2031
      2.1.0 -> 2103
      2.1.1 -> 2130
      2.2.0 -> 2301
      2.2.1 -> 2310
      3.0.0 -> 3012
      3.0.1 -> 3021
      3.1.0 -> 3102
      3.1.1 -> 3120
      3.2.0 -> 3201
      3.2.1 -> 3210

The following pseudo-code demonstrates the procedure to generate the mapping:

Starting with m=0 and Ω, an array of elements to be permutated, for each digit g starting with the most significant digit in the factorial base number.

• If g is greater than zero, rotate left the elements from m to m+g in Ω (see example)
• Increment m and repeat the first step using the next most significant digit until the factorial base number is exhausted.

For example: using the factorial base number 2.0.1 and Ω = 0 1 2 3

• Step 1: m=0 g=2; Rotate places 0 through 2 left. Ω becomes 2 0 1 3
• Step 2: m=1 g=0; no action
• Step 3: m=2 g=1; Rotate places 2 through 3 left. Ω becomes 2 0 3 1

Task

• Part 1: Use your function to recreate the permutation table of 3 digit factorial base numbers as above. Show the output here.

• Part 2: Use your function to generate all permutations of 11 digits. Count them, don't display them, and compare this method with the method in RCs Permutations task.

• Part 3: Use your function to create the corresponding permutations of the following two random 51 digit factorial base numbers:

   39.49.7.47.29.30.2.12.10.3.29.37.33.17.12.31.29.34.17.25.2.4.25.4.1.14.20.6.21.18.1.1.1.4.0.5.15.12.4.3.10.10.9.1.6.5.5.3.0.0.0
   51.48.16.22.3.0.19.34.29.1.36.30.12.32.12.29.30.26.14.21.8.12.1.3.10.4.7.17.6.21.8.12.15.15.13.15.7.3.12.11.9.5.5.6.6.3.4.0.3.2.1

Use the following shoe of cards as your Ω array:

   A♠K♠Q♠J♠10♠9♠8♠7♠6♠5♠4♠3♠2♠A♥K♥Q♥J♥10♥9♥8♥7♥6♥5♥4♥3♥2♥A♦K♦Q♦J♦10♦9♦8♦7♦6♦5♦4♦3♦2♦A♣K♣Q♣J♣10♣9♣8♣7♣6♣5♣4♣3♣2♣

• Part 4: Finally, create your own 51 digit factorial base number and produce the corresponding permutation of the above shoe.