exponential complexity DEMO

#quote from MIT 'introduction to computation and programming using python, Revised'
def getBinaryRep(n, numDigits):
    """Assumes n and numDigits are non-negative ints
       Returns a numDigits str that is a binary
       representation of n"""
    result = ''
    while n > 0:
        result = str(n%2) + result
        n = n//2
    if len(result) > numDigits:
        raise ValueError('not enough digits')
    for i in range(numDigits -len(result)):
        result = '0' + result
    return result
    
def genPowerset(L):
    """Assumes L is a list
       Returns a list of lists that contains all possible
       combinations of the elements of L. E.g., if
       L is [1, 2] it will return a list with elements
       [], [1], [2], and [1, 2]."""
    powerset = []
    for i in range(0, 2**len(L)):
        binStr = getBinaryRep(i, len(L))
        subset = []
        for j in range(len(L)):
            if binStr[j] == '1':
                subset.append(L[j])
        powerset.append(subset)
    return powerset

L = ['a', 'b', 'c']


genPowerset(L)
Out[113]: [[], ['c'], ['b'], ['b', 'c'], ['a'], ['a', 'c'], ['a', 'b'], ['a', 'b', 'c']]