I came across a use case where I needed an `Exhaus...

# kotest-contributors

[mickeelm]

I came across a use case where I needed an Exhaustive of partial permutations/k-permutations of a list, so I modified the current permutations(list: List<A>) implementation a bit, adding k: Int = list.size as a parameter (where k cannot be larger than the list size and must be greater than zero). Effectively meaning that if you omit k, the function will behave just like before, but if you provide k you'd get permutations of size k.

Would you be interested in a PR? If so, would you like me to modify the current method (what I've done locally) or perhaps add another method (like partialPermutations() or equivalent)?

[Emil Kantis]

IMO keep the existing method to keep binary compatibility but add @Deprecated, add another method with the additional param with a default value and we can replace the deprecated one completely in 6.0 or something 🙂 Imo the name can be kept as permutations, perhaps k could be just permutationLength, length or something else that's descriptive?

Disclaimer: I work with Mikael (shoving Kotest down his throat all day) 😉

[mickeelm]

Allright, so I think we have three options here:

1. As described above, i.e. a new overloaded method with length added, but the original method deprecated. The downside with that is that any calls without an explicit parameter length, will "point" to the original method and thus get a deprecated-warning (and the only way to get rid of it is to explicitly add a length-value to every call). Does not feel nice IMO and possibly pretty confusing
2. Break binary compability (add length to the existing method)
3. Add a new method called partialPermutations or equivalent
I'll adapt to your wishes but if the breaking part does not seem high risk/impact, I think option 2 is nicest API-wise.