Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at make_change.pl line 12. #### use strict; use warnings; use re 'eval'; my @denoms = (10, 6, 5, 1); my $expr = join '', map "((?:$_)*)", map '1' x $_, @denoms; print "E=$expr\n"; sub greedy_change { my $change = shift; my $coin_count = 0; my @combo; $_ = ('1' x $change); print "Trying to change $change with @denoms...\n"; print "$expr on $_\n"; if ( m{^$expr$ (?{ print "Code doesn't get run after once.\n"; my @lengths = ($+[1]); my $new_count = 0; $lengths[$_] = $+[$_+1] - $+[$_] for 1..$#denoms; $new_count += $lengths[$_]/$denoms[$_] for 0..$#denoms; if (!$coin_count or $new_count < $coin_count) { print "$change: $new_count is better than $coin_count\n"; $coin_count = $new_count; @combo = @lengths; } }) }x) { print "Matched!\n"; } if ($coin_count) { print "C=$coin_count\n"; } else { print "No matching combination found\n"; } @combo; } for my $num (12, 14, 36) { my @change = greedy_change($num); print "$num: @change\n"; }