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Powerset

Power Set

Power set P(S) of a set S is the set of all subsets of S. For example S = {a, b, c} then P(s) = {{}, {a}, {b}, {c}, {a,b}, {a, c}, {b, c}, {a, b, c}}

Powerset also includes empty set and S itself

If S has n elements in it then P(s) will have 2^n elements

Algorithm

Input: Set[], set_size

Input: Set[], set_size
1. Get the size of power set
powet_set_size = pow(2, set_size)
2 Loop for counter from 0 to pow_set_size
(a) Loop for i = 0 to set_size
(i) If ith bit in counter is set
Print ith element from set for this subset
(b) Print seperator for subsets i.e., newline

Running time - O(2^n^)

Running time with decoding from integer to binary - O(2^n * log n)

Using Bit Manipulation

possibleSubsets(A, N):
for i = 0 to 2^N:
for j = 0 to N:
if jth bit is set in i:
print A[j]
print ‘\n’

void possibleSubsets(char A[], int N)
{
for(int i = 0;i < (1 << N); ++i)
{
for(int j = 0;j < N;++j)
if(i & (1 << j))
cout << A[j] << ‘ ‘;
cout << endl;
}
}

Python (Using chain and combinations)

# get all subsets of a list
from itertools import chain, combinations
def all_subsets(s):
return chain(*map(lambda x: combinations(s, x), range(0, len(s)+1)))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_set