iterative permute function in C

I'm trying to write an iterative function that computes all the permutations of an array of numbers given in input. Here is the code I've written so far.

void permute(int *a, int size){
  int j=0, i, h=0, m;
  bool flag=true;
  int f = factorial(size);
  int *arr, *res;
  int counter=0;

  arr = malloc(f*sizeof(int));
  

  for(i=0; i<f; i++)
    arr[i] = 0;

  while (j < f) {
    if(arr[j]<j)
    {
      if(j%2 == 0)
      {
        swap(a[0],a[j]);
      } else {
        swap(a[arr[j]], a[j]);
      }

      arr[j]++;

      j=0;
    } else{
      arr[j] = 0;
      j++;
    }
    printf("%d\n",a[j] );
    }
}

The code doesn't compute well all the permutations and goes into a long loop. Can someone help me, please? Thanks to everyone.

Solution

Your code is close but includes some problems. For instance, the while loop while (j < f) will assign j to a value out of bound of the array a. Instead would you please try:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int factorial(int x)
{
    int i;
    int y = 1;

    for (i = 1; i <= x; i++) {
        y *= i;
    }
    return y;
}

void swap(int *x, int *y)
{
    int temp;
    temp = *x;
    *x = *y;
    *y = temp;
}

void permute(int *a, int size)
{
    int i, j = 0;
    int f = factorial(size);
    int *arr;

    arr = calloc(f, sizeof(int));       // the members are initialized to 0

    // print the original array
    for (i = 0; i < size; i++) {
        printf("%d%s", a[i], i == size - 1 ? "\n" : " ");
    }

    while (j < size) {
        if (arr[j] < j) {
            if (j % 2 == 0) {
                swap(a + 0, a + j);
            } else {
                swap(a + arr[j], a + j);
            }

            // print the rearranged array
            for (i = 0; i < size; i++) {
                printf("%d%s", a[i], i == size - 1 ? "\n" : " ");
            }

            arr[j]++;
            j = 0;
        } else {
            arr[j] = 0;
            j++;
        }
    }
    free(arr);
}

int main()
{
    int a[] = {1, 2, 3};                // example
    permute(a, sizeof a / sizeof a[0]); // the 2nd argument is the array length

    return 0;
}

Output of the example: