#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use feature qw{ say }; my $string = '123456789'; my $length = length $string; my @possible_ops = ("" , '+', '-'); { my @ops; sub Next { return @ops = (0) x ($length) unless @ops; my $i = 0; while ($i < $length) { if ($ops[$i]++ > $#possible_ops - 1) { $ops[$i++] = 0; next } # + before the first number next if 0 == $i && '+' eq $possible_ops[ $ops[0] ]; return @ops } return } } sub evaluate { my ($expression) = @_; my $sum; $sum += $_ for $expression =~ /([-+]?[0-9]+)/g; return $sum } my %count = ( my $max_count = 0 => 0 ); say 'Show all solutions that sum to 100'; while (my @ops = Next()) { my $expression = ""; for my $i (0 .. $length - 1) { $expression .= $possible_ops[ $ops[$i] ]; $expression .= substr $string, $i, 1; } my $sum = evaluate($expression); ++$count{$sum}; $max_count = $sum if $count{$sum} > $count{$max_count}; say $expression if 100 == $sum; } say 'Show the sum that has the maximum number of solutions'; say "sum: $max_count; solutions: $count{$max_count}"; my $n = 1; ++$n until ! exists $count{$n}; say "Show the lowest positive sum that can't be expressed"; say $n; say 'Show the ten highest numbers that can be expressed'; say for (sort { $b <=> $a } keys %count)[0 .. 9];