combinations algorithm

An algorithm for "generating Power Set" from an array is what you are looking for. You can try Google or some other search engine to find the algorithm that best fits your needs.

In C++ given the following routine:

template <typename Iterator>
bool next_combination(const Iterator first, Iterator k, const Iterator last)
{
   /* Credits: Mark Nelson http://marknelson.us */
   if ((first == last) || (first == k) || (last == k))
      return false;
   Iterator i1 = first;
   Iterator i2 = last;
   ++i1;
   if (last == i1)
      return false;
   i1 = last;
   --i1;
   i1 = k;
   --i2;
   while (first != i1)
   {
      if (*--i1 < *i2)
      {
         Iterator j = k;
         while (!(*i1 < *j)) ++j;
         std::iter_swap(i1,j);
         ++i1;
         ++j;
         i2 = k;
         std::rotate(i1,j,last);
         while (last != j)
         {
            ++j;
            ++i2;
         }
         std::rotate(k,i2,last);
         return true;
      }
   }
   std::rotate(first,k,last);
   return false;
}

You can then proceed to do the following:

std::string s = "abcde";
for(std::size_t i = 1; i != s.size(); ++i)
{
   do
   {
      std::cout << std::string(s.begin(),s.begin() + i) << std::endl;
   }
   while(next_combination(s.begin(),s.begin() + i,s.end()));
}

Note: That you should expect to see 2^n-1 combinations, where n is the length of the array or string.

You are describing a power set. Here is some C++ code:

#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <functional>
using namespace std;

vector< string > string_powerset( string const &in ) {
    vector< string > result(1); // start output with one empty string
    result.reserve( 1 << in.size() ); // output size = 2^( in.size() )
    if ( result.capacity() != 1<<in.size() ) throw range_error( "too big" );

    for ( string::const_iterator it = in.begin(); it != in.end(); ++ it ) {
        size_t middle = result.size(); // duplicate what we have so far
        result.insert( result.end(), result.begin(), result.end() );

          // append current character onto duplicated output
        for_each( result.begin() + middle, result.end(),
           bind2nd( mem_fun_ref( &string::push_back ), * it ) );
    }
    return result;
}

Tested working :v) . The range check isn't the best, but whatever.

This code will tend to overflow, due to the exponential growth of the powerset, so you should only pass it short strings. The other posted answer avoids this problem by generating and returning one string at a time. However, this is easier to understand, and using a far larger and more confusing piece of code would be premature optimization unless you actually have an overflow problem.

EDIT: I wrote up a next_subset answer, and it looks nothing like Ben's.