Euler Problem 24 asks to develop lexicographic permutations which are ordered arrangements of objects in lexicographic order. Tushar Roy of Coding Made Simple has shared a great introduction on how to generate lexicographic permutations.

Euler Problem 24 Definition

A permutation is an ordered arrangement of objects. For example, 3124 is one possible permutation of the digits 1, 2, 3 and 4. If all of the permutations are listed numerically or alphabetically, we call it lexicographic order. The lexicographic permutations of 0, 1 and 2 are:

012 021 102 120 201 210

What is the millionth lexicographic permutation of the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9?

Brute Force Solution

The digits 0 to 9 have permutations (including combinations that start with 0). Most of these permutations are, however, not in lexicographic order. A brute-force way to solve the problem is to determine the next lexicographic permutation of a number string and repeat this one million times.

nextPerm <- function(a) {
    # Find longest non-increasing suffix
    i <- length(a) while (i > 1 && a[i - 1] >= a[i])
        i <- i - 1
    # i is the head index of the suffix
    # Are we at the last permutation?
    if (i <= 1) return (NA)
    # a[i - 1] is the pivot
    # Find rightmost element that exceeds the pivot
    j <- length(a)
    while (a[j] <= a[i - 1]) 
        j <- j - 1
    # Swap pivot with j
    temp <- a[i - 1]
    a[i - 1] <- a[j]
    a[j] <- temp
    # Reverse the suffix
    a[i:length(a)] <- rev(a[i:length(a)])
    return(a)
    }

numbers <- 0:9
for (i in 1:(1E6 - 1)) numbers <- nextPerm(numbers)
answer <- numbers
print(answer)

This code takes the following steps:

1. Find largest index such that .
   1. If no such index exists, then this is already the last permutation.
2. Find largest index such that and
3. Swap and .
4. Reverse the suffix starting at .

Combinatorics

A more efficient solution is to use combinatorics, thanks to MathBlog. The last nine digits can be ordered in ways. So the first permutations start with a 0. By extending this thought, it follows that the millionth permutation must start with a 2.

From this rule, it follows that the 725761^st permutation is 2013456789. We now need 274239 more lexicographic permutations:

We can repeat this logic to find the next digit. The last 8 digits can be ordered in 40320 ways. The second digit is the 6th digit in the remaining numbers, which is 7 (2013456789).

This process is repeated until all digits have been used.

numbers <- 0:9
n <- length(numbers)
answer <- vector(length = 10)
remain <- 1E6 - 1
for (i in 1:n) {
    j <- floor(remain / factorial(n - i))
    answer[i] <- numbers[j + 1]
    remain <- remain %% factorial(n - i)
    numbers <- numbers[-(j + 1)]
}
answer <- paste(answer, collapse = "")
print(answer)

R blogger Tony’s Bubble Universe created a generalised function to solve this problem a few years ago.

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