How would you craft a function to enumerate every anagram for a specific string?

Question Analysis

The question asks you to write a function that generates all possible anagrams of a given string. An anagram is a rearrangement of the letters of the string into a different word or phrase. For example, the anagrams of the word "abc" are "abc", "acb", "bac", "bca", "cab", and "cba".

To solve this problem, you need to understand the concept of permutations. A permutation of a string is a specific arrangement of its characters. The task is to find all permutations of the given string, which are the anagrams. The complexity of the problem is factorial in terms of the length of the string (O(n!)), as you must consider all possible arrangements.

Answer

To enumerate all anagrams of a specific string, you can use a recursive approach to generate permutations. Below is a Python function that addresses the problem:

def generate_anagrams(s: str) -> list:
    def backtrack(path, options):
        if not options:
            result.append("".join(path))
            return
        for i in range(len(options)):
            # Choose
            path.append(options[i])
            # Explore
            backtrack(path, options[:i] + options[i+1:])
            # Un-choose
            path.pop()

    result = []
    backtrack([], list(s))
    return result

# Example usage:
string = "abc"
anagrams = generate_anagrams(string)
print(anagrams)

Explanation:

• Function generate_anagrams(s: str) -> list: This function initializes the recursive process.
• Inner function backtrack(path, options): This handles the recursive generation of permutations.
  • path keeps track of the current permutation being constructed.
  • options are the remaining characters that can be used to complete the current permutation.
  • If options is empty, it indicates a complete permutation (an anagram) has been formed, which is then appended to the result list.
• Recursive Mechanism:
  • Choose: Select a character from options to add to the current path.
  • Explore: Continue to build the permutation with the remaining characters.
  • Un-choose: Remove the last character added to path to backtrack and try other possibilities.

This function efficiently generates all permutations of the input string, which are the anagrams, and stores them in a list. The complexity is O(n!), which is typical for permutation generation due to the factorial growth in possibilities with increasing string length.