从Python 2.6（如果你使用的是Python 3）开始，你可以使用标准库工具：itertools.permutations。

import itertools
list(itertools.permutations([1, 2, 3]))

如果你出于某种原因使用旧版Python（<2.6），或者只是想知道它的工作原理，那么这是一种不错的方法，取自 http://code.activestate.com/recipes/252178/：

def all_perms(elements):
    if len(elements) <=1:
        yield elements
    else:
        for perm in all_perms(elements[1:]):
            for i in range(len(elements)):
                # nb elements[0:1] works in both string and list contexts
                yield perm[:i] + elements[0:1] + perm[i:]

的文档中列出了几种替代方法itertools.permutations。这是一个：

def permutations(iterable, r=None):
    # permutations('ABCD', 2) --> AB AC AD BA BC BD CA CB CD DA DB DC
    # permutations(range(3)) --> 012 021 102 120 201 210
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    r = n if r is None else r
    if r > n:
        return
    indices = range(n)
    cycles = range(n, n-r, -1)
    yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices[:r])
    while n:
        for i in reversed(range(r)):
            cycles[i] -= 1
            if cycles[i] == 0:
                indices[i:] = indices[i+1:] + indices[i:i+1]
                cycles[i] = n - i
            else:
                j = cycles[i]
                indices[i], indices[-j] = indices[-j], indices[i]
                yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices[:r])
                break
        else:
            return

另一个基于itertools.product：

def permutations(iterable, r=None):
    pool = tuple(iterable)
    n = len(pool)
    r = n if r is None else r
    for indices in product(range(n), repeat=r):
        if len(set(indices)) == r:
            yield tuple(pool[i] for i in indices)