title: Why does itertools.permutations() return a list, instead of a string?
body: <p>Why does itertools.permutations() return a list of characters or digits for each permutation, instead of just returning a string?</p>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; print([x for x in itertools.permutations('1234')])
  &gt;&gt;&gt; [('1', '2', '3', '4'), ('1', '2', '4', '3'), ('1', '3', '2', '4') ... ]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why doesn't it return this?</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; ['1234', '1243', '1324' ... ]
  </code></pre>