@_ == keys %{@_,reverse @_);
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Again, this is a terrible approach since you are spinning cycles needlessly. If you don't believe me:

• 1 = 6
• 2 = 15
• 3 = 20
• 4 = 15
• 5 = 6
• 6 = 1

That is a total of 63 possible combinations you should be testing, but your misuse of Algorithm::Loops has lead to testing 55,986. Unique combination certainly are not permutations.

Limbic~Region, I work with gr0k and he has to leave for the day, so I'll reply back. I think our example of what we want was fine, but maybe our code confused some people (as you state in your replies). What we are trying to get it is basicly this...

We have...

A=10
B=1
C=6

to be checked. We want to only add up the combinations that are unique. So, what we were ultimately trying to do was generate a list that would give us a way to calculate the unique combinations. Something like this...

A
A B
A B C
A C
B
B C
C

So we'd then run through that list applying our values...

A - 10
A+B - 11
A+B+C - 17
A + C - 16 * matches 16 no need to check C+A, etc..
B - 1
B+C - 7
C - 6

So A+C matches what we want. No need to check C+A. Same with if A+B+C matched what we want. No need to check A+C+B, B+C+A, etc... That was our ultimate goal. Of course A B C could easily be 100 long or even more, but left it small for this post. Hopefully that'll clear some things up. Thanks for all help.

the_0ne,
I understand that, which is why I said modifying the code would not be difficult to do that. The problem is you seem to want to proceed with using a technique that is producing far more candidates than is necessary. Making a terrible approach more efficient isn't going to make it work.

Cheers - L~R

Update: Even with only pulling unique combinations, it does not take long to get to astronimical numbers as pointed out by kvale earlier. Try out the following code.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $k = $ARGV[0] || 50;
my $total = 1;

for my $n ( 1 .. $k - 1 ) {
    if ( $n > $k - $n ) {
        $total += factorial($k, $n + 1) / factorial( $k - $n );
    }
    else {
        $total += factorial($k, $k - $n + 1) / factorial( $n );
    }
}
print "Total unique combinations for $k is $total\n";

sub factorial {
    my ($n, $max, $total) = @_;
    $total ||= 1;
    $max   ||= 0;
    return $total if ! $n || $n == $max - 1;
    @_ = ($n - 1, $max, $total * $n);
    goto &factorial;
}
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