Number of ways to pair people

Namachila October 13, 2025

0 1 4 minutes read

Given that there are p people in a party. Each person can either join dance as a single individual or as a pair with any other. The task is to find the number of different ways in which p people can join the dance.
Examples:

Input : p = 3
Output : 4
Let the three people be P1, P2 and P3
Different ways are: {P1, P2, P3}, {{P1, P2}, P3},
{{P1, P3}, P2} and {{P2, P3}, P1}.

Input : p = 2
Output : 2
The groups are: {P1, P2} and {{P1, P2}}.

Approach: The idea is to use dynamic programming to solve this problem. There are two situations: Either the person join dance as single individual or as a pair. For the first case the problem reduces to finding the solution for p-1 people. For the second case, there are p-1 choices to select an individual for pairing and after selecting an individual for pairing the problem reduces to finding solution for p-2 people as two people among p are already paired.
So the formula for dp is:

dp[p] = dp[p-1] + (p-1) * dp[p-2].

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

C++

// CPP program to find number of ways to
// pair people in party
 
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
 
// Function to find number of ways to
// pair people in party
int findWaysToPair(int p)
{
    // To store count of number of ways.
    int dp[p + 1];
 
    dp[1] = 1;
    dp[2] = 2;
 
    // Using the recurrence defined find
    // count for different values of p.
    for (int i = 3; i <= p; i++) {
        dp[i] = dp[i - 1] + (i - 1) * dp[i - 2];
    }
 
    return dp[p];
}
 
// Driver code
int main()
{
    int p = 3;
    cout << findWaysToPair(p);
    return 0;
}

Java

// Java program to find number of ways to 
// pair people in party 
 
class GFG
{
     
// Function to find number of ways to 
// pair people in party 
static int findWaysToPair(int p) 
{ 
    // To store count of number of ways. 
    int dp[] = new int[p + 1]; 
 
    dp[1] = 1; 
    dp[2] = 2; 
 
    // Using the recurrence defined find 
    // count for different values of p. 
    for (int i = 3; i <= p; i++)
    { 
        dp[i] = dp[i - 1] + (i - 1) * dp[i - 2]; 
    } 
 
    return dp[p]; 
} 
 
// Driver code 
public static void main(String args[])
{ 
    int p = 3; 
    System.out.println(findWaysToPair(p));
} 
}
 
// This code is contributed by Arnab Kundu

Python3

# Python3 program to find number of
# ways to pair people in party
 
# Function to find number of ways 
# to pair people in party
def findWays(p):
 
    # To store count of number of ways.
    dp = [0] * (p + 1)
    dp[1] = 1
    dp[2] = 2
 
    # Using the recurrence defined find
    # count for different values of p.
    for i in range(3, p + 1):
        dp[i] = (dp[i - 1] +
                   (i - 1) * dp[i - 2])
    return dp[p]
 
# Driver code
p = 3
print(findWays(p))
 
# This code is contributed by Shrikant13

C#

// C# program to find number of ways to 
// pair people in party 
using System;
 
class GFG
{
 
// Function to find number of ways to 
// pair people in party 
public static int findWaysToPair(int p)
{
    // To store count of number of ways. 
    int[] dp = new int[p + 1];
 
    dp[1] = 1;
    dp[2] = 2;
 
    // Using the recurrence defined find 
    // count for different values of p. 
    for (int i = 3; i <= p; i++)
    {
        dp[i] = dp[i - 1] + (i - 1) * dp[i - 2];
    }
    return dp[p];
}
 
// Driver code 
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    int p = 3;
    Console.WriteLine(findWaysToPair(p));
}
}
 
// This code is contributed by shrikanth13

PHP

<?php
// PHP program to find number of ways 
// to pair people in party
 
// Function to find number of ways to
// pair people in party
function findWaysToPair($p)
{
    // To store count of number of ways.
    $dp = array();
 
    $dp[1] = 1;
    $dp[2] = 2;
 
    // Using the recurrence defined find
    // count for different values of p.
    for ($i = 3; $i <= $p; $i++)
    {
        $dp[$i] = $dp[$i - 1] + 
                     ($i - 1) * $dp[$i - 2];
    }
 
    return $dp[$p];
}
 
// Driver code
$p = 3;
echo findWaysToPair($p);
 
// This code is contributed
// by Akanksha Rai
?>

Javascript

<script>
// Javascript program to find number of ways to
// pair people in party
 
// Function to find number of ways to
// pair people in party
function findWaysToPair(p)
{
    // To store count of number of ways.
    var dp = Array(p+1);
 
    dp[1] = 1;
    dp[2] = 2;
 
    // Using the recurrence defined find
    // count for different values of p.
    for (var i = 3; i <= p; i++) {
        dp[i] = dp[i - 1] + (i - 1) * dp[i - 2];
    }
 
    return dp[p];
}
 
// Driver code
var p = 3;
document.write( findWaysToPair(p));
 
// This code is contributed by noob2000.
</script>

Output:

Time Complexity: O(p)
Auxiliary Space: O(p)

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