# Combinations (repetition not allowed & order not important)

How to compute a table of numbers (all possibilities), where repetition is not allowed and order is not important. Example:

I have a set of prime numbers. In this example I have four: {3,5,7,11}, but it can be anything, and I want to choose every pair out of that set. To make things easier, I want to compute the indices to get those pairs of prime numbers. The set of indices is then {0,1,2,3}. We pick 2 out of 4 elements. So how do we compute the permutations or combinations:

0,1   (3,5)
0,2   (3,7)
0,3   (3,11)
1,2   (5,7)
1,3   (5,11)
2,3   (7,11)


?

It was difficult to find examples on the web, because they either allowed repetitions or were order was important. Pls answer with pseudocode or c/c++ if you can.

• Are you specifically interested in pairs of elements? Mar 24 at 14:00
• What is meant by "a table of numbers (all possibilities)"? Can you state the task you are trying to solve more clearly? This is not a coding site; C/C++ code is off-topic here, but algorithms and methods are appropriate.
– D.W.
Mar 24 at 17:53
• @D.W. "Try to ask this question on cs.stackexchange.com – S.M. 21 hours ago" ref. stackoverflow.com/questions/66782338/… Mar 25 at 11:06

You seem interested in just pairs of indices. Then, if you have $$n$$ elements you can just generate all pairs of indices $$(i,j)$$ with $$0 \le i < j < n$$.
For i=0,1,...,n-2: