Oh Wise Ones,

I have lists, and I need to group them with items of the same value stored in the same group, and each group having as close to the same number of items as possible, with a maximum of X groups (assuming 6 here)... 

my $best_score = 9999;
my $best_combo;
my @list = qw(1 1 1 2 3 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 8 8);

while (my $combo = get_combo(\@list)) { # hard to do well??
  $score = get_score($combo); # easy
  if ($score < $best_score) {
    $best_score = $score;
    $best_combo = $combo;
  }
}

print $best_score.': '.Dumper($best_combo);

[download]
That would group these items like this: 
$VAR1 = [
  [qw(1 1 1 2)],
  [qw(3 4 4 4)],
  [qw(5 5 )],
  [qw(6 6 6)],
  [qw(7 7)],
  [qw(8 8 8 9)],
];

[download]
I know that there must be some algorithm out there to get this done, but it's perplexing me... any thoughts?

Many Thanks!

In reply to How to Group List Items? by Thelonious

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