Note that a solution doesn't always exist. With 6 people, it's easy to see it's possible that after 3 years, it could happen there's no solution.

Here's a solution based on a regex. It may run a long time if you have 50 couples celebrating their 50th Christmas though. 

#!/usr/bin/perl
    
use strict;
use warnings;
    
my %people = (
    jim    => ['betty',  'claire'],
    betty  => ['frank',  'jim'   ],
    frank  => ['claire', 'john'  ],
    claire => ['john',   'betty' ],
    john   => ['jim',    'frank' ],
    nancy  => ['',       ''      ],             # new girl
);

my @names = keys %people;  
    
my $str = "";
my $re  = "";
    
my $i;
foreach my $name (@names) {
    $str .= "$name:";
    my %not;
    @not {$name, @{$people {$name}}} = ();
    $str .= join "," => grep {!exists $not {$_}} @names;
    $str .= "\n";
    $re  .= ".*\\b";
    $re  .= "(?!\\$_)" for 1 .. $i ++;
    $re  .= "(\\w+)\\b.*\n";
}

if (my @a = $str =~ $re) {
    foreach my $name (@names) {
        printf "$name picks %s\n" => shift @a;
    }
}
else {
    print "No solution possible.\n";
}
__END__
nancy picks frank
john picks betty
claire picks jim
betty picks claire
jim picks john
frank picks nancy

[download]

Abigail

In reply to Re: Kris Kringle / Secret Santa by Abigail-II
in thread Kris Kringle / Secret Santa by BigLug

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