How to find all possible combinations of an array?

I am mapping a path that a delivery truck could take, all trips must go to 8 locations.

Location 1 (starting location) and location 8 (ending location) are both the same place and fixed. I am trying to figure out the best way to get all of the random combinations of the other locations, 2 through 7.

Answer 1

[Joseph Cheng]

the function perms will generate all the combinations

 perms(2:7)

will give you

     7     6     5     4     3     2
     7     6     5     4     2     3
     7     6     5     3     4     2
     7     6     5     3     2     4
     7     6     5     2     3     4
    ......
     2     7     3     6     4     5
     2     7     6     4     3     5
     2     7     6     4     5     3
     2     7     6     3     4     5
     2     7     6     3     5     4
     2     7     6     5     3     4
     2     7     6     5     4     3

[Walter Roberson]

Note that the number of such permutations grows quickly with the size of the number of elements, so this technique is seldom used for traveling salesman problems.

[Zubia Ishrat]

Thanks.