=combin function

[Jerry Kinder]

Hi,
I want to know the combinations of four letter that are possible from a list
( abcdefghij ) .
The =combin function will tell me how many combinations are possible.
=combin(10,4)
I want a list of all the possible combinations of 4 letters for the list.
abcd
acbd
addc .... etc.
Is there away to have excel 2000 do this??

Thank you,
Jerry

[kraljb]

The combin function doesn't necessarily show you that. At least from what your samples how. the combin function would think the following values are counted as 1, because it's only looking at items, not at order
abcd
abdc
acbd
As these only the order is changing

Also, the combin function does not take into account repeats of the same item so the following would not be introduced into the system at all
aaaa
aaab
aabb
And with this as it won't repeat values
So while combin(10,4) returns 210, that is missing quite a few values. The more appropriate way to calculate it the way that it appears you want done. Would be =combin(10,4)*4^4 which equals 53760 and as the list is already that big it doens't leave much room for growing beyond the limitations of excel. Just going from combin(10,4) to combin(10,5) it raises from 210 to 252, while combin(10,5)*5^5 jumps up to 787500 (Which would be just over 12 columns completely filled with numbers).

But to do it with just the 210, or 252 you would need to setup a macro for that. Either way it is "doable", but if you want the full list, you may want to go out of town for a few days while Excel does the work once you have a macro.

Hope that helps

[gls858]

kraljb wrote:
> The combin function doesn't necessarily show you that. At least from
> what your samples how. the combin function would think the following
> values are counted as 1, because it's only looking at items, not at
> order
> abcd
> abdc
> acbd
> As these only the order is changing
>
> Also, the combin function does not take into account repeats of the
> same item so the following would not be introduced into the system at
> all
> aaaa
> aaab
> aabb
> And with this as it won't repeat values
> So while combin(10,4) returns 210, that is missing quite a few values.
> The more appropriate way to calculate it the way that it appears you
> want done. Would be =combin(10,4)*4^4 which equals 53760 and as the
> list is already that big it doens't leave much room for growing beyond
> the limitations of excel. Just going from combin(10,4) to combin(10,5)
> it raises from 210 to 252, while combin(10,5)*5^5 jumps up to 787500
> (Which would be just over 12 columns completely filled with numbers).
>
> But to do it with just the 210, or 252 you would need to setup a macro
> for that. Either way it is "doable", but if you want the full list, you
> may want to go out of town for a few days while Excel does the work once
> you have a macro.
>
> Hope that helps
>
>
Help me out here. My math classes were a long time ago. If you have
10 letters as the OP has stated in combinations of 4 isn't the
total number of combinations 10x10x10x10? You have 10 letters
that can be used in the first position and since repeats are allowed
10 for the second position and so on. Or am I missing something?

Just curious,
gls858