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Generate all possible combinations longer than the length of an array

I need to build each combination of length L from an String Array/ArrayList, where L is greater than the Array length
I currently have a recursive method (not of my own creation) that will generate each combination of a String[], as long as the combinations are shorter than the Array.
example/psudoCode:
input (2, {A,B,C})
returns {AA, AB, AC, BA, BC, CB, CA}
As of now, if the requested combination length (2 in the example) is greater than the Array length (4,5,6... instead of 2), the recursive method shoots out that sweet sweet ArrayIndexOutOfBounds error.
What I need is a method (recursive or not) that will return every combination of the array, regardless of whether the combinations are longer than the Array itself. Would this be done better by adding more letters to the Array and crossing my fingers or is there a legitimate way to accomplish this? Thank you!
Here is the method I have been using. If u know where the credit lies please say so, this is not of my own creation.
public class bizzBam
{
// Driver method to test below methods
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("First Test");
String set1[] = {"a", "b","c"};
printAllKLength(set1, pointX);
}
// The method that prints all possible strings of length k. It is
// mainly a wrapper over recursive function printAllKLengthRec()
static void printAllKLength(String set[], int k) {
int n = set.length+2;
printAllKLengthRec(set, "", n, k);
}
// The main recursive method to print all possible strings of length k
static void printAllKLengthRec(String set[], String prefix, int n, int length) {
// Base case: k is 0, print prefix
if (length == 0) {
System.out.println(prefix);
return;
}
// One by one add all characters from set and recursively
// call for k equals to k-1
for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
// Next character of input added
String newPrefix = prefix + set[i];
// k is decreased, because we have added a new character
printAllKLengthRec(set, newPrefix, n, length - 1);
}
}
}
(Edit forgot to say:)
For this algorithim at least, if "PointX" is greater than the input array's length, it will return the indexoutofbounds.

Strictly speaking these are permutations rather than combinations. You're generating all permutations of k elements selected from a set of n candidates, with replacement (or repitition). There will be n^k such permutations.
Here's a non-recursive solution.
public class Permutations
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
permutationsKN(new String[]{"a", "b", "c"}, 4);
}
static void permutationsKN(String[] arr, int k)
{
int n = arr.length;
int[] idx = new int[k];
String[] perm = new String[k];
while (true)
{
for(int i=0; i<k; i++) perm[i] = arr[idx[i]];
System.out.println(String.join("", perm));
// generate the next permutation
int i = idx.length - 1;
for (; i >= 0; i--)
{
idx[i]++;
if (idx[i] < n) break;
idx[i] = 0;
}
// if the first index wrapped around then we're done
if (i < 0) break;
}
}
}

You have two problems here:
int n = set.length+2; -> This is giving you your "sweet sweet" IndexArrayOutOfBoundsException. Change it to set.length-1. I am not sure why you decided to randomnly put +2 there.
for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) -> You will be looping from 0 to n. You need to loop from 0 to n-1.
Edit: Or as #SirRaffleBuffle suggested, just do set.length. Total credits to him

Assuming your example is missing "BB" and "CC" because it includes "AA", it looks like what you want is just like the odometer of a car except that instead of ten digits, you want a choice of letters. It's not hard to model an odometer:
class Odo {
private final char [] chars;
private final int [] positions;
private boolean hasNext;
Oddo(String chars, int nPositions) {
this.chars = chars.toCharArray();
this.positions = new int [nPositions];
this.hasNext = true;
}
boolean hasNext() {
return hasNext;
}
String emitNext() {
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < positions.length; ++i) sb.append(chars[positions[i]]);
for (int i = 0; i < positions.length; ++i) {
if (++positions[i] < chars.length) {
hasNext = true;
return sb.toString();
}
positions[i] = 0;
}
hasNext = false;
return sb.toString();
}
}
Calling like so:
Odo odo = new Odo("AB", 3);
while (odo.hasNext()) {
System.out.println(odo.emitNext());
}
Produces
AAA
BAA
ABA
BBA
AAB
BAB
ABB
BBB

Java: Testing algorithms: all possible combinations

I want to exhaustively test a String matching algorithm, named myAlgo(Char[] a, Char[] b)
The exhaustive test includes a no. of different char letters, alplhabet " l ", in an "n" long array. The test then computes all combinations, while comparing it with all combinations of another array with similar properties (Like truth tables),e.g.
I have not been able to either compute something that would generate every combination of the array of size n and alphabet l, niether have I been able to make code that is able to combine the computation into iterative testcases (test all the combinations of the two arrays compared), though with code that would be able to generate the combinations, making a nested for-loop should do the required testing.
My goal is to break my algorithm by making it compute something it should not compute.
Test(char[] l, int n)
l = [a;b] //a case could be
n = 2 //a case could be
myAlgo([a;a],[a;a]); //loops over my algorithm in the following way
myAlgo([a;b],[a;a]);
myAlgo([b;a],[a;a]);
myAlgo([b;b],[a;a]);
myAlgo([a;a],[a;b]);
myAlgo([a;b],[a;b]);
myAlgo([b;a],[a;b]);
myAlgo([b;b],[a;b]);
myAlgo([a;a],[b;a]);
myAlgo([a;b],[b;a]);
...
myAlgo([b;b],[b;b]);
My own solution (only works for a finite set of "l") and also starts printing wierd outputs on later iterations.
public class Test {
//aux function to format chars
public static String concatChar(char [] c){
String s = "";
for(char cc : c){
s += cc;
}
return s;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
String ss1 = "AA"; //TestCases, n = 2
String ss2 = "AA";
char[] test1 = ss1.toCharArray();
char[] test2 = ss2.toCharArray();
Fordi fordi = new Fordi(); //my algorithm
TestGenerator tGen = new TestGenerator(); //my testGenerator
for(int i=0; i<Math.pow(4.0, 2.0);i++){ //to test all different cases
for(int j=0; j<Math.pow(4.0, 2.0);j++){
int k = fordi.calculate(test1, test2); //my algorithm
String mys1 = concatChar(test1); //to print result
String mys2 = concatChar(test2); //to print result
System.out.println(mys1 + " - " + mys2);
System.out.println(k);
test2 = tGen.countArray(test2); //"flip" one number
}
test2 = ss1.toCharArray();
test1 = tGen.countArray(test1); //"flip"
}
}
}
My arrayflipper code:
public char[] countArray(char[] a){
int i=0;
while(i<a.length){
switch (a[i]){
case 'A':
a[i]='B';
clearBottom(a,i);
return a;
case 'B':
a[i]='C';
clearBottom(a,i);
return a;
case 'C':
a[i]='D';
clearBottom(a,i);
return a;
case 'D':
i++;
break;
default:
System.out.println("Something went terribly wrong!");
}
}
return a;
}
public char[] clearBottom(char [] a, int i){
while(i >0){
i--;
a[i] = 'A';
}
return a;
}

As I understand it, your goal is to create all n-character long strings (stored individually as elements in an array) consisting of letters in the L letter alphabet?
One way to accomplish this is to order your letters (A=0, B=1, C=2, etc). Then you can, from a starting string of AAA...AAA (n-characters long) just keep adding 1. Essentially you implement an addition algorithm. Adding 1 would turn an A=0 into a B=1. For example, n=3 and L=3:
start: AAA (0,0,0).
Adding 1 becomes AAB (0,0,1)
Adding 1 again become AAC (0, 0, 2)
Adding 1 again (since we are out of letters, now we carry a bit over) ABA (0, 1, 0).
You can boil the process down to looking for the right-most number that is not maxed out and add 1 to it (then all digits to the right of that digit go back to zero). So in the string ABCCC, the B digit is the right-most not maxed out digit, it goes up by 1 and becomes a C, then all the maxed out digits to the right go back to 0 (A) leaving ACAAA as the next string.
Your algorithm just repeatedly adds 1 until all the elements in the string are maxed out.

Instead of using a switch statement, I recommend putting every character you want to test (A, B, C, D) into an array, and then using the XOR operation to calculate the index of each character from the iteration number in a manner similar to the following:
char[] l = new char[]{'A','B','C','D'};
int n = 2;
char[] test1 = new char[n];
char[] test2 = new char[n];
int max = (int)Math.pow(l.length, n);
for (int i = 0; i < max; i++) {
for (int k = 0; k < n; k++) {
test2[k] = l[(i % (int)Math.pow(l.length, k + 1)) / (int)Math.pow(l.length, k)];
}
for (int j = 0; j < max; j++) {
for (int k = 0; k < n; k++) {
test1[k] = l[(j % (int)Math.pow(l.length, k + 1)) / (int)Math.pow(l.length, k)];
}
int k = fordi.calculate(test1, test2);
System.out.println(new String(test1) + "-" + new String(test2));
System.out.println(k);
}
}
You can add more characters to l as well as increase n and it should still work. Of course, this can be further optimized, but you should get the idea. Hope this answer helps!

Mix multiple strings into all the possible combinations

I have some strings.
1
2
3
How do I combine them into all their unique combinations?
123
132
213
231
312
321
Here is the code I have, but I would like to work without the Random class because I understand that this is not the best way to do it.
import java.util.Random;
public class Solution
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String[] names = new String[]{"string1", "string2", "string3"};
for (int i = 0; i < 9; i++) {
Random rand = new Random();
int rand1 = rand.nextInt(3);
System.out.println(names[rand.nextInt(3)] +
names[rand1] +
names[rand.nextInt(3)]);
}
}
}

You can loop over the array by creating another nested loop for each repetition.
for (String word1 : words) {
for (String word2 : words) {
for (String word3 : words) {
System.out.println(word1 + word2 + word3);
}
}
}
Here is how to avoid having the same word in one combination.
for (String word1 : words) {
for (String word2 : words) {
if ( !word1.equals(word2)) {
for (String word3 : words) {
if ( !word3.equals(word2) && !word3.equals(word1)) {
System.out.println(word1 + word2 + word3);
}
}
}
}
}
Here is a class version that is capable of multiple lengths, using backtracking.
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class PrintAllCombinations {
public void printAllCombinations() {
for (String combination : allCombinations(new String[] { "A", "B", "C" })) {
System.out.println(combination);
}
}
private List<String> allCombinations(final String[] values) {
return allCombinationsRecursive(values, 0, values.length - 1);
}
private List<String> allCombinationsRecursive(String[] values, final int i, final int n) {
List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
if (i == n) {
StringBuilder combinedString = new StringBuilder();
for (String value : values) {
combinedString.append(value);
}
result.add(combinedString.toString());
}
for (int j = i; j <= n; j++) {
values = swap(values, i, j);
result.addAll(allCombinationsRecursive(values, i + 1, n));
values = swap(values, i, j); // backtrack
}
return result;
}
private String[] swap(final String[] values, final int i, final int j) {
String tmp = values[i];
values[i] = values[j];
values[j] = tmp;
return values;
}
}
Please note that using the random method, it is never guaranteed that all combinations are being get. Therefore, it should always loop over all values.

You could use the Google Guava library to get all string permutations.
Collection<List<String>> permutations = Collections2.permutations(Lists.newArrayList("string1", "string2", "string3"));
for (List<String> permutation : permutations) {
String permutationString = Joiner.on("").join(permutation);
System.out.println(permutationString);
}
Output:
string1string2string3
string1string3string2
string3string1string2
string3string2string1
string2string3string1
string2string1string3

Firstly, there is nothing random in the result you are after - and Random.nextInt() will not give you unique permutations, or necessarily all permutations.
For N elements, there are N! (N-factorial) unique sequences - which I believe is what you are after. Therefore your three elements give six unique sequences (3! = 3 * 2 * 1).
This is because you have a choice of three elements for the first position (N), then a choice of the two remaining elements for the second position (N-1), leaving one unchosen element for the last position (N-2).
So, this means that you should be able to iterate over all permutations of the sequence; and the following code should do this for a sequence of 3 elements:
// Select element for first position in sequence...
for (int i = 0 ; i < 3 ; ++i)
{
// Select element for second position in sequence...
for (int j = 0 ; j < 3 ; ++j)
{
// step over indices already used - which means we
// must test the boundary condition again...
if (j >= i) ++j;
if (j >= 3) continue;
// Select element for third position in sequence...
// (there is only one choice!)
for (int k = 0 ; k < 3 ; ++k)
{
// step over indices already used, recheck boundary
// condition...
if (k >= i) ++k;
if (k >= j) ++k;
if (k >= 3) continue;
// Finally, i,j,k should be the next unique permutation...
doSomethingWith (i, j, k);
}
}
}
Now, big caveat that I have just written this OTH, so no guarentees. However, hopefully you can see what you need to do. Of course, this could and should be generalised to support arbitary set sizes, in which case you could populate an int[] with the indices for the sequence.
However, I guess that if you look around there will be some better algorithms for generating permutations of a sequence.

Permutation of an array, with repetition, in Java

There are some similar questions on the site that have been of some help, but I can't quite nail down this problem, so I hope this is not repetitive.
This is a homework assignment where you have a set array of characters [A, B, C], and must use recursion to get all permutations (with repetition). The code I have sort of does this:
char[] c = {'A', 'B' , 'C'};
public void printAll(char[] c, int n, int k) {
if (k == n) {
System.out.print(c);
return;
}
else {
for (int j = 0; j<n; j++) {
for (int m = 0; m<n; m++) {
System.out.print(c[k]);
System.out.print(c[j]);
System.out.print(c[m] + "\r\n");
}
}
}
printAll(c, n, k+1);
}
However, the parameter n should define the length of the output, so while this function prints out all permutations of length 3, it cannot do them of length 2. I have tried everything I can think of, and have pored over Google search results, and I am aggravated with myself for not being able to solve what seems to be a rather simple problem.

If I understand correctly, you are given a set of characters c and the desired length n.
Technically, there's no such thing as a permutation with repetition. I assume you want all strings of length n with letters from c.
You can do it this way:
to generate all strings of length N with letters from C
-generate all strings of length N with letters from C
that start with the empty string.
to generate all strings of length N with letters from C
that start with a string S
-if the length of S is N
-print S
-else for each c in C
-generate all strings of length N with letters from C that start with S+c
In code:
printAll(char[] c, int n, String start){
if(start.length >= n){
System.out.println(start)
}else{
for(char x in c){ // not a valid syntax in Java
printAll(c, n, start+x);
}
}
}

I use this java realization of permutations with repetitions. A~(n,m): n = length of array, m = k. m can be greater or lesser then n.
public class Permutations {
static void permute(Object[] a, int k, PermuteCallback callback) {
int n = a.length;
int[] indexes = new int[k];
int total = (int) Math.pow(n, k);
Object[] snapshot = new Object[k];
while (total-- > 0) {
for (int i = 0; i < k; i++){
snapshot[i] = a[indexes[i]];
}
callback.handle(snapshot);
for (int i = 0; i < k; i++) {
if (indexes[i] >= n - 1) {
indexes[i] = 0;
} else {
indexes[i]++;
break;
}
}
}
}
public static interface PermuteCallback{
public void handle(Object[] snapshot);
};
public static void main(String[] args) {
Object[] chars = { 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd' };
PermuteCallback callback = new PermuteCallback() {
#Override
public void handle(Object[] snapshot) {
for(int i = 0; i < snapshot.length; i ++){
System.out.print(snapshot[i]);
}
System.out.println();
}
};
permute(chars, 8, callback);
}
}
Example output is
aaaaaaaa
baaaaaaa
caaaaaaa
daaaaaaa
abaaaaaa
bbaaaaaa
...
bcdddddd
ccdddddd
dcdddddd
addddddd
bddddddd
cddddddd
dddddddd

I just had an idea. What if you added a hidden character (H for hidden) [A, B, C, H], then did all the fixed length permutations of it (you said you know how to do that). Then when you read it off, you stop at the hidden character, e.g. [B,A,H,C] would become (B,A).
Hmm, the downside is that you would have to track which ones you created though [B,H,A,C] is the same as [B,H,C,A]

Here is c# version to generate the permutations of given string with repetitions:
(essential idea is - number of permutations of string of length 'n' with repetitions is n^n).
string[] GetPermutationsWithRepetition(string s)
{
s.ThrowIfNullOrWhiteSpace("s");
List<string> permutations = new List<string>();
this.GetPermutationsWithRepetitionRecursive(s, "",
permutations);
return permutations.ToArray();
}
void GetPermutationsWithRepetitionRecursive(string s, string permutation, List<string> permutations)
{
if(permutation.Length == s.Length)
{
permutations.Add(permutation);
return;
}
for(int i =0;i<s.Length;i++)
{
this.GetPermutationsWithRepetitionRecursive(s, permutation + s[i], permutations);
}
}
Below are the corresponding unit tests:
[TestMethod]
public void PermutationsWithRepetitionTests()
{
string s = "";
int[] output = { 1, 4, 27, 256, 3125 };
for(int i = 1; i<=5;i++)
{
s += i;
var p = this.GetPermutationsWithRepetition(s);
Assert.AreEqual(output[i - 1], p.Length);
}
}

What is the most efficient algorithm for reversing a String in Java?

What is the most efficient way to reverse a string in Java? Should I use some sort of xor operator? The easy way would be to put all the chars in a stack and put them back into a string again but I doubt that's a very efficient way to do it.
And please do not tell me to use some built in function in Java. I am interested in learning how to do it not to use an efficient function but not knowing why it's efficient or how it's built up.

You say you want to know the most efficient way and you don't want to know some standard built-in way of doing this. Then I say to you: RTSL (read the source, luke):
Check out the source code for AbstractStringBuilder#reverse, which gets called by StringBuilder#reverse. I bet it does some stuff that you would not have considered for a robust reverse operation.

The following does not deal with UTF-16 surrogate pairs.
public static String reverse(String orig)
{
char[] s = orig.toCharArray();
int n = s.length;
int halfLength = n / 2;
for (int i=0; i<halfLength; i++)
{
char temp = s[i];
s[i] = s[n-1-i];
s[n-1-i] = temp;
}
return new String(s);
}

You said you don't want to do it the easy way, but for those Googling you should use StringBuilder.reverse:
String reversed = new StringBuilder(s).reverse().toString();
If you need to implement it yourself, then iterate over the characters in reverse order and append them to a StringBuilder. You have to be careful if there are (or can be) surrogate pairs, as these should not be reversed. The method shown above does this for you automatically, which is why you should use it if possible.

An old post & question, however still did not see answers pertaining to recursion. Recursive method reverse the given string s, without relaying on inbuilt jdk functions
public static String reverse(String s) {
if (s.length() <= 1) {
return s;
}
return reverse(s.substring(1)) + s.charAt(0);
}
`

The fastest way would be to use the reverse() method on the StringBuilder or StringBuffer classes :)
If you want to implement it yourself, you can get the character array, allocate a second character array and move the chars, in pseudo code this would be like:
String reverse(String str) {
char[] c = str.getCharArray
char[] r = new char[c.length];
int end = c.length - 1
for (int n = 0; n <= end; n++) {
r[n] = c[end - n];
}
return new String(r);
}
You could also run half the array length and swap the chars, the checks involved slow things down probably.

I'm not really sure by what you mean when you say you need an efficient algorithm.
The ways of reversing a string that I can think of are (they are all already mentioned in other answers):
Use a stack (your idea).
Create a new reversed String by adding characters one by one in reverse order from the original String to a blank String/StringBuilder/char[].
Exchange all characters in the first half of the String with its corresponding position in the last half (i.e. the ith character gets swapped with the (length-i-1)th character).
The thing is that all of them have the same runtime complexity: O(N). Thus it cannot really be argued that any one is any significantly better than the others for very large values of N (i.e. very large strings).
The third method does have one thing going for it, the other two require O(N) extra space (for the stack or the new String), while it can perform swaps in place. But Strings are immutable in Java so you need to perform swaps on a newly created StringBuilder/char[] anyway and thus end up needing O(N) extra space.

public class ReverseInPlace {
static char[] str=null;
public static void main(String s[]) {
if(s.length==0)
System.exit(-1);
str=s[0].toCharArray();
int begin=0;
int end=str.length-1;
System.out.print("Original string=");
for(int i=0; i<str.length; i++){
System.out.print(str[i]);
}
while(begin<end){
str[begin]= (char) (str[begin]^str[end]);
str[end]= (char) (str[begin]^str[end]);
str[begin]= (char) (str[end]^str[begin]);
begin++;
end--;
}
System.out.print("\n" + "Reversed string=");
for(int i=0; i<str.length; i++){
System.out.print(str[i]);
}
}
}

I think that if you REALLY don't have performance problem you should just go with the most readable solution which is:
StringUtils.reverse("Hello World");

private static String reverse(String str) {
int i = 0;
int j = str.length()-1;
char []c = str.toCharArray();
while(i <= j){
char t = str.charAt(i);
c[i] = str.charAt(j);
c[j]=t;
i++;
j--;
}
return new String(c);
}

If you do not want to use any built in function, you need to go back with the string to its component parts: an array of chars.
Now the question becomes what is the most efficient way to reverse an array? The answer to this question in practice also depends upon memory usage (for very large strings), but in theory efficiency in these cases is measured in array accesses.
The easiest way is to create a new array and fill it with the values you encounter while reverse iterating over the original array, and returning the new array. (Although with a temporary variable you could also do this without an additional array, as in Simon Nickersons answer).
In this way you access each element exactly once for an array with n elements. Thus giving an efficiency of O(n).

I would simply do it this way without a use of any single util function. Just the String class is sufficient.
public class MyStringUtil {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String reversedString = reverse("StringToReverse");
System.out.println("Reversed String : " + reversedString);
}
/**
* Reverses the given string and returns reversed string
*
* #param s Input String
* #returns reversed string
*/
private static String reverse(String s) {
char[] charArray = s.toCharArray(); // Returns the String's internal character array copy
int j = charArray.length - 1;
for (int i = 0; charArray.length > 0 && i < j; i++, j--) {
char ch = charArray[i];
charArray[i] = charArray[j];
charArray[j] = ch;
}
return charArray.toString();
}
}
Check it. Cheers!!

Using String:
String abc = "abcd";
int a= abc.length();
String reverse="";
for (int i=a-1;i>=0 ;i--)
{
reverse= reverse + abc.charAt(i);
}
System.out.println("Reverse of String abcd using invert array is :"+reverse);
Using StringBuilder:
String abc = "abcd";
int a= abc.length();
StringBuilder sb1 = new StringBuilder();
for (int i=a-1;i>=0 ;i--)
{
sb1= sb1.append(abc.charAt(i));
}
System.out.println("Reverse of String abcd using StringBuilder is :"+sb1);

One variant can be, swapping the elements.
int n = length - 1;
char []strArray = str.toCharArray();
for (int j = 0; j < n; j++) {
char temp = strArray[j];
char temp2 = strArray[n];
strArray[j] = temp2;
strArray[n] = temp;
n--;
}

public static void main(String[] args){
String string ="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(string);
sb.reverse();
System.out.println(sb);
}

public static String Reverse(String word){
String temp = "";
char[] arr = word.toCharArray();
for(int i = arr.length-1;i>=0;i--){
temp = temp+arr[i];
}
return temp;
}

char* rev(char* str)
{
int end= strlen(str)-1;
int start = 0;
while( start<end )
{
str[start] ^= str[end];
str[end] ^= str[start];
str[start]^= str[end];
++start;
--end;
}
return str;
}
=========================
Wondering how it works?
First operation:
x1 = x1 XOR x2
x1: 1 0 0
x2: 1 1 1
New x1: 0 1 1
Second operation
x2 = x2 XOR x1
x1: 0 1 1
x2: 1 1 1
New x2: 1 0 0
//Notice that X2 has become X1 now
Third operation:
x1 = x1 XOR x2
x1: 0 1 1
x2: 1 0 0
New x1: 1 1 1
//Notice that X1 became X2

public static string getReverse(string str)
{
char[] ch = str.ToCharArray();
string reverse = "";
for (int i = str.Length - 1; i > -1; i--)
{
reverse += ch[i];
}
return reverse;
}
//using in-built method reverse of Array
public static string getReverseUsingBulidingFunction(string str)
{
char[] s = str.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(s);
return new string(s);
}
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
string str = "123";
Console.WriteLine("The reverse string of '{0}' is: {1}",str,getReverse(str));
Console.WriteLine("The reverse string of '{0}' is: {1}", str, getReverseUsingBulidingFunction(str));
Console.ReadLine();
}

Using multiple threads to swap the elements:
final char[] strArray = str.toCharArray();
IntStream.range(0, str.length() / 2).parallel().forEach(e -> {
final char tmp = strArray[e];
strArray[e] = strArray[str.length() - e - 1];
strArray[str.length() - e - 1] = tmp;
});
return new String(strArray);

Of course this is the most efficient way:
String reversed = new StringBuilder(str).reverse().toString();
But if you don't like using that then I recommend this instead:
public String reverseString(String str)
{
String output = "";
int len = str.length();
for(int k = 1; k <= str.length(); k++, len--)
{
output += str.substring(len-1,len);
}
return output;
}

static String ReverseString(String input) {
var len = input.Length - 1;
int i = 0;
char[] revString = new char[len+1];
while (len >= 0) {
revString[i] = input[len];
len--;
i++;
}
return new string(revString);
}
why can't we stick with the simplest loop and revere with character read and keep adding to the char array, I have come across with a whiteboard interview, where interviewer set restrictions on not to use StringBuilder and inbuilt functions.

This is the optimal way to reverse a string with O(log n) complexity.
public char[] optimisedArrayReverse(char[] chars) {
char[] reversedChars = chars;
int length = chars.length;
int center = (length / 2) - 1;
int reversedIndex = chars.length - 1;
if (center < 0) {
return chars;
}
for (int index = 0; index <= center; index++) {
//Swap values
char temp = reversedChars[index];
reversedChars[index] = chars[reversedIndex];
reversedChars[reversedIndex] = temp;
reversedIndex --;
}
return reversedChars;
}

public static String reverseString(String str)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = str.length() - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
sb.append(str[i]);
}
return sb.toString();
}