For comparison: 

$ time perl min_supply.pl 1 4 3
Required supply: 3
6 steps:
   S->X
   X->Z
   S->X
   X->Z
   S->X
   X->Z

real    0m0.011s
user    0m0.016s
sys     0m0.000s

$ time perl min_steps.pl 1 4 3
3 steps:
   S->Y
   Y->Z
   Z->X

real    0m0.011s
user    0m0.008s
sys     0m0.004s

$ time perl -e1

real    0m0.002s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

[download]

Note that I got a different solution that yours for min steps, but it's has the same number of steps.

Update: I seemed to have imagined that you said yours was slow. Ignore this post.

In reply to Re^6: Challenge: N Jugs Problem by ikegami
in thread Challenge: N Jugs Problem by Limbic~Region

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.