<p>Inspired by this <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/283561/extracting-leaf-paths-from-n-ary-tree-in-f">question</a> and <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/283561/extracting-leaf-paths-from-n-ary-tree-in-f#283638">answer</a>, how do I create a generic permutations algorithm in F#?  Google doesn't give any useful answers to this.</p>

<p>EDIT: I provide my best answer below, but I suspect that Tomas's is better (certainly shorter!)</p>

My latest best answer
```
```
//mini-extension to List for removing 1 element from a list
module List = 
    let remove n lst = List.filter (fun x -> x <> n) lst

//Node type declared outside permutations function allows us to define a pruning filter
type Node<'a> =
    | Branch of ('a * Node<'a> seq)
    | Leaf of 'a

let permutations treefilter lst =
    //Builds a tree representing all possible permutations
    let rec nodeBuilder lst x = //x is the next element to use
        match lst with  //lst is all the remaining elements to be permuted
        | [x] -> seq { yield Leaf(x) }  //only x left in list -> we are at a leaf
        | h ->   //anything else left -> we are at a branch, recurse 
            let ilst = List.remove x lst   //get new list without i, use this to build subnodes of branch
            seq { yield Branch(x, Seq.map_concat (nodeBuilder ilst) ilst) }

    //converts a tree to a list for each leafpath
    let rec pathBuilder pth n = // pth is the accumulated path, n is the current node
        match n with
        | Leaf(i) -> seq { yield List.rev (i :: pth) } //path list is constructed from root to leaf, so have to reverse it
        | Branch(i, nodes) -> Seq.map_concat (pathBuilder (i :: pth)) nodes

    let nodes = 
        lst                                     //using input list
        |> Seq.map_concat (nodeBuilder lst)     //build permutations tree
        |> Seq.choose treefilter                //prune tree if necessary
        |> Seq.map_concat (pathBuilder [])      //convert to seq of path lists

    nodes
```
```
The permutations function works by constructing an n-ary tree representing all possible permutations of the list of 'things' passed in, then traversing the tree to construct a list of lists. Using 'Seq' dramatically improves performance as it makes everything lazy.
The second parameter of the permutations function allows the caller to define a filter for 'pruning' the tree before generating the paths (see my example below, where I don't want any leading zeros).
Some example usage: Node<'a> is generic, so we can do permutations of 'anything':
```
```
let myfilter n = Some(n)  //i.e., don't filter
permutations myfilter ['A';'B';'C';'D'] 

//in this case, I want to 'prune' leading zeros from my list before generating paths
let noLeadingZero n = 
    match n with
    | Branch(0, _) -> None
    | n -> Some(n)

//Curry myself an int-list permutations function with no leading zeros
let noLZperm = permutations noLeadingZero
noLZperm [0..9]
```
```
(Special thanks to
Tomas Petricek
, any comments welcome)