Generating Power Set in Python | Programming Tutorials

Introduction

In mathematics, a power set of a set S is the set of all subsets of S, including the empty set and S itself. In Python, we can use a combination of loops and recursion to generate the power set of a given set.

Skills Graph

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Power Set

Problem

Given a set, return all possible subsets of the set. The subsets should be unique, meaning that if two subsets have the same elements, they should be treated as the same subset. The empty set should also be included as a subset. The inputs are not necessarily unique, and we cannot assume that the inputs are valid. However, we can assume that the problem fits in memory.

Requirements

To generate the power set of a set, we need to meet the following requirements:

The resulting subsets should be unique, treating subsets with the same elements as the same.

The empty set should be included as a subset.

The inputs are not necessarily unique.

We cannot assume that the inputs are valid.

We can assume that the problem fits in memory.

Example Usage

* None -> None * [] -> [[]] * ['a'] -> [[], ['a']] * ['a', 'b'] -> [[], ['a'], ['b'], ['a', 'b']] * ['a', 'b', 'c'] -> [[], ['a'], ['b'], ['c'], ['a', 'b'], ['a', 'c'], ['b', 'c'], ['a', 'b', 'c']]

Summary

In this Python challenge, we learned how to generate the power set of a given set using loops and recursion. We also discussed the requirements for generating the power set, including the uniqueness of subsets and the inclusion of the empty set. By following these requirements, we can generate all possible subsets of a set in Python.

Generating Power Sets in Python