Python : generate certain combination from values in lists of dicts for timetable planning

I am trying to build a Python program that helps me arrange my timetable so I get most day offs (least school days) for university.

The user shall input a number of courses (Course A, Course B, Course C) and they will receive a list of combinations suggested that will give them least school days without time clash(eg. Course A (L1,T1) Course B(L3,T3B) Course C(L2,T2C))

I scraped some information about courses from my university website and I am now stuck.. here is a sample of what I scraped.

'Lectures':'L1 (2196)': 'Mo04:30PM-05:50PM Fr12:00PM-01:20PM', 'Tutorial': 'T1 (2198)': 'Th06:00PM-06:50PM', 'T2 (2200)': 'Mo03:00PM-03:50PM', 'Lab':
'Lectures': 'L1 (2201)': 'Tu09:00AM-10:20AM Th09:00AM-10:20AM', 'L2 (2203)': 'Tu12:00PM-01:20PM Th12:00PM-01:20PM', 'L3 (2205)': 'Tu03:00PM-04:20PM Th03:00PM-04:20PM', 'L4 (2207)': 'Tu01:30PM-02:50PM Th01:30PM-02:50PM', 'L5 (2209)': 'Tu10:30AM-11:50AM Th10:30AM-11:50AM', 'L6 (2211)': 'Tu04:30PM-05:50PM Th04:30PM-05:50PM', 'Tutorial': 'T1A (2213)': 'Mo05:30PM-06:20PM', 'T1B (2215)': 'We06:00PM-06:50PM', 'T2A (2216)': 'Fr12:00PM-12:50PM', 'T2B (2217)': 'Fr01:30PM-02:20PM', 'T3A (2218)': 'We04:30PM-05:20PM', 'T3B (2219)': 'Th12:00PM-12:50PM', 'T4A (2220)': 'Fr03:30PM-04:20PM', 'T4B (2221)': 'Mo02:00PM-02:50PM', 'T5A (2222)': 'Fr12:00PM-12:50PM', 'T5B (2223)': 'Mo06:00PM-06:50PM', 'T6A (2224)': 'We06:00PM-06:50PM', 'T6B (2225)': 'Mo02:00PM-02:50PM', 'Lab':


The outtermost dictionary are the courses, inside are three dictionaries naming "Lectures","Tutorial","Lab", not all courses have all three of these, but you have to arrange it to a timetable whenever one or more session exists. I want to create a combination of these courses then check if time clash occurs and if yes trash those combination. However, I am not sure how could I create such combinations to ensure that.

EDIT

My ultimate goal is for a list like this:

course A='L':'L1':'Time','L2':'Time','T':'T1':'Time','T2':'Time','LAB':'LAB1':'Time
course B='L':'L1':'Time','T':'T1':'Time','T2':'Time','LAB':'LAB1':'Time


I would want a combination like

CourseA(L1,T1,LAB1)CourseB(L1,T1)
CourseA(L1,T2,LAB1)CourseB(L1,T1)
CourseA(L2,T1,LAB1)CourseB(L1,T1)
CourseA(L1,T1,LAB1)CourseB(L1,T2)
CourseA(L1,T2,LAB1)CourseB(L1,T2)
CourseA(L2,T1,LAB1)CourseB(L1,T2)


to be given, then maybe I will further filter out those that have time clash by tracing back to the sessions' value(time).

1 Answer
1

Generating permutations for nested lists like that is a bit tricky.

Just to get you started here's how you could go about generating all the possible permutations for some nested lists. You need to try to figure out how you can apply this pattern to your problem.

import itertools
# a list with 4 categories
a = [[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[7,8,9], [10,11,12]]

# this function will help generate permutations
prod = itertools.product

# combine the first two columns. The for loop below assumes
# that the previous result is a list.
result = list(prod(a[0],a[1]))

for x in a[2:]:
result = list(prod(x, result))
result = [[r[0]] + list(r[1]) for r in result]

print(result)


The output of this program is:

[[10, 7, 1, 4], [10, 7, 1, 5], [10, 7, 1, 6], [10, 7, 2, 4], [10, 7, 2, 5],
[10, 7, 2, 6], [10, 7, 3, 4], [10, 7, 3, 5], [10, 7, 3, 6], [10, 8, 1, 4], ...
[12, 9, 1, 5], [12, 9, 1, 6], [12, 9, 2, 4], [12, 9, 2, 5], [12, 9, 2, 6],
[12, 9, 3, 4], [12, 9, 3, 5], [12, 9, 3, 6]]


Now you would want to generate permutations representing each class, and then do the same thing with those lists.

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