Wikipedia defines combinations as:

In combinatorial mathematics, a combination is an un-ordered collection of unique elements. (An ordered collection is called a permutation.) Given S, the set of all possible unique elements, a combination is a subset of the elements of S. The order of the elements in a combination is not important (two lists with the same elements in different orders are considered to be the same combination). Also, the elements cannot be repeated in a combination (every element appears uniquely once); this is often referred to as “without replacement/repetition”. This is because combinations are defined by the elements contained in them, s the set {1, 1, 1} is the same as {1}. For example, from a 52-card deck any 5 cards can form a valid combination (a hand). The order of the cards doesn’t matter and there can be no repetition of cards.

Mathworld provides a more terse definition:

The number of ways of picking k unordered outcomes from n possibilities.

The combinations of n elements chosen as k is the number of unique ways of selecting k elements from a set of n.

From now on, by set of n I always mean one of the form {1, 2, 3, …, n}.

So, what are the ways of choosing 2 elements from a set of 4, {1, 2, 3, 4}?
{1, 2}
{1, 3}
{1, 4}
{2, 3}
{2, 4}
{3, 4}

That’s 6 ways, but what is the general formula?
Formula for combinations of n chosen as k

This is easily proved: for a set of n, there are n ways of choosing the first element, n * (n - 1) ways of choosing the first two elements, …, n * (n - 1) * … * (n - k + 1) ways of choosing the first k elements. Unfortunately, this will generate duplicate subsets: for every subset of k elements, this will generate all the k! permutations of the subset. So, we have to divide the total number of subsets (n * (n - 1) * … * (n - k + 1)) by the number of repetitions (k!). This yields exactly the formula noted above.

Combinations are an astoundingly wide-spread concept, and are used in every branch of mathematics and especially in the analysis of algorithms. This said, there’s only one thing you really need to know: how to apply the formula.

Look at the formula above, notice that there are exactly k factors in the nominator and k factors in the denominator. So, to remember the formula and easily apply it:
P1. Draw the fraction line.
P2. Above the line, write k terms of the form: n, n - 1, n - 2, …
P3. Below the line, write k terms of the form: 1, 2, 3, …

Here are a few examples:
Combinations of 4 chosen as 1, 2, 3 and 4

And now for the fun part. How do you generate combinations? Look closely at the example above. First thing to note is that every combination is an array of k elements. Next, the first digit in every set is, basically, every digit between 1 and n. What about the other digits? They’re always between 1 and n and they’re always in ascending order. Now it should be obvious what the algorithm is:
P1. Start of with (1, 2, …, k); this is the first combination.
P2. Print it.
P3. Given the combination (c0, c1, …, cn), start from the back and for ci, if it is larger than n - k + 1 + i then increment it and go on to the next indice i. After this, if c0 > n - k, then this is not a valid combination so we stop. Otherwise give ci+1, ci+2, … the values of ci + 1, ci+1 + 1, …. Jump to P2.

Here’s the sourcecode in C (comb1.c):
NOTE: Source is mangled by Wordpress. Download the source file, or copy-paste it from here or remember to replace the amp-s with ampersands and the lt-s with “less then” signs.


#include <stdio.h>

/* Prints out a combination like {1, 2} */
void printc(int comb[], int k) {
        printf("{");
        int i;
        for (i = 0; i < k; ++i)
                printf("%d, ", comb[i] + 1);
        printf("\\b\\b}\\n");
}

/*
        next_comb(int comb[], int k, int n)
                Generates the next combination of n elements as k after comb

        comb => the previous combination ( use (0, 1, 2, ..., k) for first)
        k => the size of the subsets to generate
        n => the size of the original set

        Returns: 1 if a valid combination was found
                0, otherwise
*/
int next_comb(int comb[], int k, int n) {
        int i = k - 1;
        ++comb[i];
        while ((i >= 0) && (comb[i] >= n - k + 1 + i)) {
                --i;
                ++comb[i];
        }

        if (comb[0] > n - k) /* Combination (n-k, n-k+1, ..., n) reached */
                return 0; /* No more combinations can be generated */

        /* comb now looks like (..., x, n, n, n, ..., n).
        Turn it into (..., x, x + 1, x + 2, ...) */
        for (i = i + 1; i < k; ++i)
                comb[i] = comb[i - 1] + 1;

        return 1;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
        int n = 5; /* The size of the set; for {1, 2, 3, 4} it's 4 */
        int k = 3; /* The size of the subsets; for {1, 2}, {1, 3}, ... it's 2 */
        int comb[16]; /* comb[i] is the index of the i-th element in the
                        combination */

        /* Setup comb for the initial combination */
        int i;
        for (i = 0; i < k; ++i)
                comb[i] = i;

        /* Print the first combination */
        printc(comb, k);

        /* Generate and print all the other combinations */
        while (next_comb(comb, k, n))
                printc(comb, k);

        return 0;
}

Always open to comments. Have fun.