Possible combinations for elements of five vectors

Hello,

I am stuck with a question involving combinations (and permutations, may be!). I would really appreciate any help.

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I have five vectors:

D1=[a1 a2 a3]

D2=[b1 b2 b3]

...

D5=[e1 e2 e3]

where a1, a2, a3, b1, b2, b3, ....e1, e2, e3 are all positive integers

I am interested in getting all the possible combinations such that only one number is chosen from each vector. Each generated combination should therefore have 5 elements. For example:

[a1, b1, c1, d1, e1]

[a1, b2, c1, d1, e1]

 ...

etc.

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• No need to mention but there shouldn't be any combination with size less or more than 5. And, just one element should be chosen from each vector. For example, [a1, b1, b2, c1, d1] shall not be in the solution since D2's elements are chosen twice and there ain't any chosen from D5.

I hope I was good enough with the words.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[James Tursa]

allcomb(D1,D2,D3,D4,D5)

or

allcomb(D1,D2,D3,D4,D5,'matlab')

Depending on which indexing order you want. You can find allcomb by Jos here:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/10064-allcomb

[manish sharma]

You're a life saver, James! This was clear, concise, and perfect.

Thank you!