Generating permutations with repetitions of string

Question

I have written the below code which generates all possible permutations with repetitions of a string.

I want to make this program shorter and much faster, but I don't know how to do that.

Imports System.Text
Public Class Form1
 Private blkRpt As Integer
 Private perm As Double
 Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
 Dim textlen As Double = TextBox1.Text.Length
 Dim rtb As Double = TextBox2.Text
 perm = textlen ^ rtb
 permutate()
 End Sub
 Private Sub permutate()
 For a As Integer = 0 To 1 Step 0
 Dim s As String = TextBox1.Text
 Dim len As Integer = TextBox2.Text
 Dim r As New Random
 Dim sb As New StringBuilder
 For i As Integer = 1 To len
 Dim idx As Integer = r.Next(0, s.Length)
 sb.Append(s.Substring(idx, 1))
 Next
 Dim sring As String = sb.ToString
 If RichTextBox1.Text.Contains(sb.ToString) Then
 blkRpt = blkRpt + 1
 Else
 RichTextBox1.AppendText(sring & vbNewLine)
 End If
 Dim s1 As String = TextBox1.Text
 Dim len1 As Integer = TextBox2.Text
 Dim r1 As New Random
 Dim sb1 As New StringBuilder
 For i As Integer = 1 To len1
 Dim idx1 As Integer = r1.Next(0, s1.Length)
 sb1.Append(s1.Substring(idx1, 1))
 Next
 Dim sring1 As String = sb1.ToString
 If RichTextBox1.Text.Contains(sb1.ToString) Then
 blkRpt = blkRpt + 1
 Else
 RichTextBox1.AppendText(sring1 & vbNewLine)
 End If
 Dim s2 As String = TextBox1.Text
 Dim len2 As Integer = TextBox2.Text
 Dim r2 As New Random
 Dim sb2 As New StringBuilder
 For i As Integer = 1 To len2
 Dim idx2 As Integer = r2.Next(0, s2.Length)
 sb2.Append(s2.Substring(idx2, 1))
 Next
 Dim sring2 As String = sb2.ToString
 If RichTextBox1.Text.Contains(sb2.ToString) Then
 blkRpt = blkRpt + 1
 Else
 RichTextBox1.AppendText(sring2 & vbNewLine)
 End If
 Dim s21 As String = TextBox1.Text
 Dim len21 As Integer = TextBox2.Text
 Dim r21 As New Random
 Dim sb21 As New StringBuilder
 For i As Integer = 1 To len1
 Dim idx21 As Integer = r21.Next(0, s2.Length)
 sb2.Append(s2.Substring(idx21, 1))
 Next
 Dim sring21 As String = sb21.ToString
 If RichTextBox1.Text.Contains(sb21.ToString) Then
 blkRpt = blkRpt + 1
 Else
 RichTextBox1.AppendText(sring21 & vbNewLine)
 End If
 If RichTextBox1.Lines.Length - 1 >= perm Then
 Exit For
 End If
 Label6.Text = blkRpt.ToString
 Label5.Text = RichTextBox1.Lines.Length - 1 & "/" & perm
 Next
 End Sub
End Class

• Tim: Please use Option Strict....implicit conversions (like Dim rtb As Double = TextBox2.Text) are dangerous. What is TextBox2.Text has "The first and the last" in it?
• Tim: Have you run this code? Your outer for loop has Step 0 - which means the loop will never increment - you have an infinite loop. You're using random to get (I think) a random element of the string...but you could easily get the same element multiple times. Those are just two things that jump out.
• Tim: Take a look at this SO question - Listing all permutations of a string/integer. Goes into a good deal of detail on how to do this.
• XtraCode: I have ran this code, It will continue to loop until it generated all the possible combination
• XtraCode: Every output in Richtextbox1 is unique. Look at richtextbox1.text.contains(sb.ToString)

Answer 1

I'm not going to rewrite this code right now, but I can highlight a few points:

1. Naming.
   • Identifiers should have a meaningful name.
   • Disemvoweling is evil.
   • Adding a 1 after an identically-named variable is bad.
   • Adding a 2 after an identically-named variable is terrible.
   • Adding 21 instead of a 3 after an identically-named variable is careless.
   • If you think you need the same variable 3 times in one function, something's not right. Right? I think Tim's comment on your original post has a huge golden clue on that matter.
2. UI is for presentation. Logic that isn't presentation logic shouldn't need to know there's a UI involved.
   • Decoupling your logic from the UI helps making your code testable.
   • Learn to pass parameters into your functions.
   • Knowing exactly what's involved is very hard to tell, we need to puzzle out the whole thing just to figure out what RichTextBox1 is supposed to contain; your naming isn't helping.
3. Implicit string-to-numeric conversion is ugly and bug-prone, especially with user input.
   • Assume the user is a 3 year old that could click anywhere and enter anything in any TextBox.
4. You have many, many, many things to worry about before you can think of improving performance.
   • Using Random isn't making it any faster. I don't think Random is warranted here.
   • Access the UI once to get the values you need, once to write the values you've computed; pass the values as parameters (I said that before, I'll say it again - here, done).
   • It's not the job of a permutation function to access the UI. Ever. Take values in (as parameters), do your thing, spit out a result (as a return value).
   • perm (bad name) shouldn't be an instance variable. Not even a parameter. It's only meaningful within the permutate function: that's where it belongs.

That's all folks! I might edit this post later with actual code.

• Jamal: +1 good points about the naming, UI, and testing. It does all tie into what I know about interfacing and good, testable coding.