Power Set Generation in Python

Introduction

In mathematics, the power set of a set is the set of all subsets of the set, including the empty set and the set itself. In Python, we can create a function that returns the powerset of a given iterable.

Powerset

Write a Python function called powerset(iterable) that takes an iterable as an argument and returns the powerset of the iterable. The function should follow these steps:

1. Convert the given value to a list.
2. Use range() and itertools.combinations() to create a generator that returns all subsets.
3. Use itertools.chain.from_iterable() and list() to consume the generator and return a list.

from itertools import chain, combinations

def powerset(iterable):
  s = list(iterable)
  return list(chain.from_iterable(combinations(s, r) for r in range(len(s)+1)))

powerset([1, 2]) ## [(), (1,), (2,), (1, 2)]

Summary

In this challenge, you have learned how to create a Python function that returns the powerset of a given iterable. The function uses range() and itertools.combinations() to create a generator that returns all subsets, and itertools.chain.from_iterable() and list() to consume the generator and return a list.