all possible combinations of an array

Hi,
I have a small question about arrays. I have tried to find a way for getting all possible combinations of an array with just one dimension. I have spent some days to get the solution, without any progress. Could someone help me with my problem. Or at least help me on the way.

Thanks in advance. And if its really really obvious sorry for this dumb question.

What does "all possible combinations of an array" mean?

if you have an array for instance 1,2,3,4 I want to have the program make the following combinations:

1,2,3,4

1+2 , 1+3 , 1+4

1+2+3 , 1+2+4

1+2+3+4

2+3 , 2+4 ,etc.

The way I like to think of this problem is the "odometer" method: Imagine an odometer in binary with four digits (one digit for each item in your array). So it would start as follows:
0000
0001
0010
0011
0100
0101
0110
0111
etc.
If the i'th digit is one, include that element, otherwise don't. So the first combination would be empty; the next would have just the fourth element; the next would have just the third, and so on. (Notice that this is the same way that you generate the rows of a truth table, for instance; it's the same problem.)

you mean somthing like:

Code:

int data[ 4 ] = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };

std::cout << "Sum is: " << data[ 0 ] + data[ 1 ] + data[ 2 ] + data[ 3 ] << std::endl;

I am only guessing here

thank you for your replies,
tabstop your idea was great thank you. I tried to make a code that makes that binairy odometer, it works partly, because after the 5 digits it gives rubbish information. The problem is that he has to go up to 32000000 digits. Is it possible with this program structure, if not could someone tell me how it has to be done? thank you in advance.
here is the code:

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
using namespace std;



int main()
{
    long getal;
    
    cin>>getal;
    double kopie=getal;
    long hoi=pow(2,kopie);
    
    cout<<hoi<<endl;
    bool tabel[getal][hoi];
    for(int n=0;n<=hoi;n++)
    {
        for(int t=0;t<=getal;t++)
        {
            tabel[t][n]=false;
        }
    }
    
    for(int n=0;n<=(hoi);n++)
    {
        if (n==0)
        {n++;}
        for(int t=0;t<=getal;t++)
        {
            tabel[t][n]=tabel[t][n-1];
        }
        for(int ok=0, h=0;ok==0;)
        {
            if (tabel[h][n]==false)
            {tabel[h][n]=true;ok=1;}
            else
            {
                tabel[h][n]=false;
                h++;
            }
        }
    }
    
    for(int n=0;n<=hoi;n++)
    {
        for(int t=0;t<=(getal-1);t++)
        {
            if(tabel[t][n]==true)
            {cout<<1;}
            else
            {cout<<0;}
        }
        cout<<endl;
    }
    char stop;
    cin>>stop;
    return(0);
}

sorry for the big main but I am not that good in programming and I hadn't that much time to put everything in functions

Even if you try with 5 items, you get some things printed out, but they don't make sense. I don't quite follow what your loop is trying to do?

the first loop is filling the array with false,
the second loop makes the odometer,
and the third loop translates the bool chars to 1 and 0

here the program works up to 5 items after 5 I get rubbish.

for the second loop:
first he looks to the last made row of digits and copies it.
then he put true on the first spot, if there's already true he changes this true in false and goes to the next spot. etc.

A hint is that the binary "odometer" is just a number being incremented by one. It probably won't be very efficient - but I guess efficiency is not the concern here - but you might just use an integer and check which bits are set. std::bitset might be handy for that.

Your bounds checks are off; you should change <= to < almost everywhere (remember: a 5-element array only has elements through a[4]).

thnx tabstop I'll look if I can make something with this

32000000 digits? 32000000 elements in the array you want all combinations of?

Well, if you ever get your program working, I'll see you next decade.