Since I'm not that familiar with java, I don't know if there's a library somewhere that can do this thing. If not, does anybody have any ideas how can this be accomplished?
For instance I have a string "foo" and I want to change the letter f with "f" and "a" so that the function returns a list of strings with values "foo" and "aoo".
How to deal with it when there's more of the same letters? "ffoo" into "ffoo", "afoo", "faoo", "aaoo".
A better explanation: (("a",("a","b)),("c",("c","d"))) Above is a group of characters that need to be replaced with a character from the other element. "a" is to be replaced with "a" and with "b". "c" is to be replaced with "c" and "d".
If I have a string "ac", the resulting combinations I need are: "ac" "bc" "ad" "bd"
If the string is "IaJaKc", the resulting combinations are: "IaJaKc" "IbJaKc" "IaJbKc" "IbJbKc" "IaJaKd" "IbJaKd" "IaJbKd" "IbJbKd"
The number of combinations can be calculated like this: (replacements_of_a^letter_amount_a)(replacements_of_c^letter_amount_c) first case: 2^12^1 = 4 second case: 2^2*2^1 = 8
If, say, the group is (("a",("a","b)),("c",("c","d","e"))), and the string is "aac", the number of combinations is: 2^2*3^1 = 12