Recursive list comprehension for permutation. Python

Question

i have a function in python, which is programmed recursive in a list comprehension. But i don't understand it clearly what really happens in it!

def permut(s,l):
    if l == []: return [[s]]
    return [ e + [l[0]] for e in permut(s, l[1:])] + [l+[s]]

The function gets two arguments, firstly a String and the second a list and it returns the permutation of the String in the list.

permut('a', [1,2,3])
[['a', 3, 2, 1], [3, 'a', 2, 1], [2, 3, 'a', 1], [1, 2, 3, 'a']]

Can someone explain, what happens in the list comprehension?

Answer 1

If the list comprehension syntax is throwing you off, you can rewrite this function as follows and add some debug print()s along the way:

def permut(s,l):
    print("Entering function permut()")
    print("Parameters:\ns: {}\nl: {}".format(s,l))
    if l == []: 
        print("End of recursion reached, returning {}".format([[s]]))
        return [[s]]
    result = []
    for e in permut(s, l[1:]):
        result.append(e + [l[0]])
    result += [l + [s]]
    print("Returning {}".format(result))
    return result

This is the output you get:

>>> permut('a', [1,2,3])
Entering function permut()
Parameters:
s: a
l: [1, 2, 3]
Entering function permut()
Parameters:
s: a
l: [2, 3]
Entering function permut()
Parameters:
s: a
l: [3]
Entering function permut()
Parameters:
s: a
l: []
End of recursion reached, returning [['a']]
Returning [['a', 3], [3, 'a']]
Returning [['a', 3, 2], [3, 'a', 2], [2, 3, 'a']]
Returning [['a', 3, 2, 1], [3, 'a', 2, 1], [2, 3, 'a', 1], [1, 2, 3, 'a']]
[['a', 3, 2, 1], [3, 'a', 2, 1], [2, 3, 'a', 1], [1, 2, 3, 'a']]