FYI, I am using JES. Why is the following code (using johnson-trotter algorithm) giving me an output of "" when i run the function spermutations(3) instead of the wanted/expected output of :

Permutations and sign of 3 items Perm: (0, 1, 2) Sign: 1 Perm: (0, 2, 1) Sign: -1 Perm: (2, 0, 1) Sign: 1 Perm: (2, 1, 0) Sign: -1 Perm: (1, 2, 0) Sign: 1 Perm: (1, 0, 2) Sign: -1 

PYTHON CODE IN QUESTION IS AS FOLLOWS:

from operator import itemgetter DEBUG = False # like the built-in __debug__ def spermutations(n): """permutations by swapping. Yields: perm, sign""" sign = 1 p = [[i, 0 if i == 0 else -1] # [num, direction] for i in range(n)] if DEBUG: print ' #', p yield tuple(pp[0] for pp in p), sign while any(pp[1] for pp in p): # moving i1, (n1, d1) = max(((i, pp) for i, pp in enumerate(p) if pp[1]), key=itemgetter(1)) sign *= -1 if d1 == -1: # Swap down i2 = i1 - 1 p[i1], p[i2] = p[i2], p[i1] # If this causes the chosen element to reach the First or last # position within the permutation, or if the next element in the # same direction is larger than the chosen element: if i2 == 0 or p[i2 - 1][0] > n1: # The direction of the chosen element is set to zero p[i2][1] = 0 elif d1 == 1: # Swap up i2 = i1 + 1 p[i1], p[i2] = p[i2], p[i1] # If this causes the chosen element to reach the first or Last # position within the permutation, or if the next element in the # same direction is larger than the chosen element: if i2 == n - 1 or p[i2 + 1][0] > n1: # The direction of the chosen element is set to zero p[i2][1] = 0 if DEBUG: print ' #', p yield tuple(pp[0] for pp in p), sign for i3, pp in enumerate(p): n3, d3 = pp if n3 > n1: pp[1] = 1 if i3 < i2 else -1 if DEBUG: print ' # Set Moving' if __name__ == '__main__': from itertools import permutations for n in (3, 4): print ' Permutations and sign of %i items' % n sp = set() for i in spermutations(n): sp.add(i[0]) print('Perm: %r Sign: %2i' % i) #if DEBUG: raw_input('?') # Test p = set(permutations(range(n))) assert sp == p, 'Two methods of generating permutations do not agree'