Here's a recursive solution I kept carrying in my head for the whole day:
#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use feature qw{ say }; my %ops = map eval "'$_' => sub { \$_[0] $_ \$_[1] }", qw( + - * / ); sub show { my ($x, $op, $y) = @{ $_[0] }[ 1 .. 3 ]; return join q(), '(', $#$x ? show($x) : $x->[0], $op, $#$y ? show($y) : $y->[0], ')' } my %shown; sub num { my ($result, @nums) = @_; if (1 == @nums) { if ($result == $nums[0][0]) { my $r = show($nums[0]); say $r unless $shown{$r}; $shown{$r} = 1; } return } for my $i (0 .. $#nums - 1) { for my $j ($i + 1 .. $#nums) { for my $op (keys %ops) { my @couples = ([ $i, $j ]); push @couples, [ $j, $i ] if $op !~ /[+*]/; for my $couple (@couples) { my ($x, $y) = @$couple; next if '/' eq $op && 0 == $nums[$y][0]; my $r = $ops{$op}->(map $_->[0], @nums[ $x, $y ]); num($result, [ $r, $nums[$x], $op, $nums[$y] ], @nums[grep $_ != $x && $_ != $y, 0 .. $#nums]) +; } } } } } num(17, map [$_], 2, 5, 6, 6);

Update: Bugfix: x-y and x/y were not tested for y-x and y/x.

($q=q:Sq=~/;[c](.)(.)/;chr(-||-|5+lengthSq)`"S|oS2"`map{chr |+ord }map{substrSq`S_+|`|}3E|-|`7**2-3:)=~y+S|`+$1,++print+eval$q,q,a,

In reply to Re: Solution to A simple but difficult arithmetic puzzle by choroba
in thread Solution to A simple but difficult arithmetic puzzle by talexb

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.