Find various ways of allocating fruit to people - ruby-on-rails

Question

# Example 1
People = ["Terry", "Merry"]
Fruit = ["Apple","Grape","Peach"]
# Possible solutions:
[
{"Terry"=>"Apple","Merry"=>"Grape"},
{"Terry"=>"Apple","Merry"=>"Peach"},
{"Terry"=>"Grape","Merry"=>"Apple"},
{"Terry"=>"Grape","Merry"=>"Peach"},
{"Terry"=>"Peach","Merry"=>"Apple"},
{"Terry"=>"Peach","Merry"=>"Grape"},
]
# Example 2
People = ["Terry", "Merry", "Perry"]
Fruit = ["Apple","Grape"]
# Possible solutions:
[
{"Terry"=>"Apple","Merry"=>"Grape","Perry"=>nil},
{"Terry"=>"Apple","Merry"=>nil,"Perry"=>"Grape"},
{"Terry"=>"Grape","Merry"=>"Apple","Perry"=>nil},
{"Terry"=>"Grape","Merry"=>nil,"Perry"=>"Apple"},
{"Terry"=>nil,"Merry"=>"Apple","Perry"=>"Grape"},
{"Terry"=>nil,"Merry"=>"Grape","Perry"=>"Apple"},
]
Stuck trying to solve this recursively (necessary for this exercise, though let me know if you don't think recursion is possible).
I feel like basically I start by assigning a random person a fruit, and then add that to all possible solutions that arise from the smaller subset of assigning remaining people remaining fruit.
E.g., for Example 1, I assign Terry an Apple, and then aggregate that with the remaining possible options of what Merry can get (either Grape or Peach).
Then just repeat changing up the fruit assigned to the first random person (e.g., with Terry getting Grape then Peach, in Example 1).
I feel like this sounds so straightforward but I'm struggling.

Answer 1

It can be done recursively as follows.
def hmmm(people, fruit)
adj_fruit = fruit + [nil]*([people.size-fruit.size, 0].max)
recurse(adj_fruit).map { |a| people.zip(a).to_h }
end
def recurse(fruit_left, fruit_selected = [])
return [fruit_selected + fruit_left] if fruit_left.size == 1
fruit_left.each_with_object([]) do |f,a|
recurse(fruit_left - [f], fruit_selected + [f]).each { |e| a << e }
end
end
hmmm(["Terry", "Merry"], ["Apple", "Grape", "Peach"])
#=> [{"Terry"=>"Apple", "Merry"=>"Grape"}, {"Terry"=>"Apple", "Merry"=>"Peach"},
# {"Terry"=>"Grape", "Merry"=>"Apple"}, {"Terry"=>"Grape", "Merry"=>"Peach"},
# {"Terry"=>"Peach", "Merry"=>"Apple"}, {"Terry"=>"Peach", "Merry"=>"Grape"}]
Here adj_fruit #=> ["Apple", "Grape", "Peach"]
hmmm(["Terry", "Merry", "Perry"], ["Apple", "Grape"])
#=> [{"Terry"=>"Apple", "Merry"=>"Grape", "Perry"=>nil},
# {"Terry"=>"Apple", "Merry"=>nil, "Perry"=>"Grape"},
# {"Terry"=>"Grape", "Merry"=>"Apple", "Perry"=>nil},
# {"Terry"=>"Grape", "Merry"=>nil, "Perry"=>"Apple"},
# {"Terry"=>nil, "Merry"=>"Apple", "Perry"=>"Grape"},
# {"Terry"=>nil, "Merry"=>"Grape", "Perry"=>"Apple"}]
Here adj_fruit #=> ["Apple", "Grape", nil].
We can see map's receiver in hmmm by removing .map { |a| people.zip(a).to_h } from its last line.
def hmmm(people, fruit)
adj_fruit = fruit + [nil]*([people.size-fruit.size, 0].max)
recurse(adj_fruit)
end
hmmm(["Terry", "Merry"], ["Apple","Grape","Peach"])
#=> [["Apple", "Grape", "Peach"], ["Apple", "Peach", "Grape"],
# ["Grape", "Apple", "Peach"], ["Grape", "Peach", "Apple"],
# ["Peach", "Apple", "Grape"], ["Peach", "Grape", "Apple"]]
A more conventional solution, such as the one following, would not employ recursion.
def hmmm(people, fruit)
(fruit + [nil]*[people.size - fruit.size, 0].max).
permutation(people.size).
map { |a| people.zip(a).to_h }
end
This produces the same return values as those shown above for the recursive solution.
See Array#permutation and Enumerable#zip.

Answer 2

If len(people) <= len(fruit), then you can use
for pieces in itertools.permutations(fruit, len(people)):
assign the pieces of fruit to the people in order
If len(people) > len(fruit), then use
for eaters in itertools.permutations(people, len(fruit))
assign the eaters to the fruit in order, and the others get nothing
I don't know how to combine the two separate cases into a single case
I now see that this was supposed to be solve recursively. Misread the original.
Let's look the possibilities for
assignment(people, fruit):
If len(people) == 0, then you're done, with the empty solution. (Not to be confused with no solution.)
If len(fruit) == 0, then no one gets any fruit. Again, this is an actual solution.
If len(people) <= len(fruit), then the first person gets some piece of fruit, appended onto all possible results of the remainder of the people getting the remainder of the fruit.
If len(people) > len(fruit), then either the first person does or doesn't get a piece of fruit, and recursively the rest of the people get whatever's left.
It's left as an exercise to you how to code this.

Answer 3

For anyone's future reference, this was my answer using recursion.
NOTE that "nil" overcounts; since "nil" is treated as a unique entry, the code reads {"Terry"=>"apple","Merry"=>"nil","Perry"=>"nil"} and {"Terry"=>"apple","Perry"=>"nil","Merry"=>"nil"} as 2 distinct solutions. I did not investigate further because this isn't super realistic for the exercise that this is a part of.
I also didn't investigate further for same reason, but using string "nil" versus nil yielded different results
def pure5(people, fruit, solution = [])
people_count = people.size
fruit_count = fruit.size
diff = people_count - fruit_count
diff.times { fruit << "nil" } if diff > 0
people.each do |p|
fruit.each do |f|
if people.size == 1
obj = {}
obj[p] = f
solution << obj
else
partial_solution = pure5(people - [p], fruit - [f])
partial_solution.each do |s|
s[p] = f
end
solution = solution + partial_solution
end
end
return solution
end
end