use warnings; @denoms = qw(2 5 10 20 50 100); sub change { my ($unchanged, $nothing_smaller_than) = (@_,0); my @results = (); for my $trybill (@denoms) { next if ($trybill < $nothing_smaller_than); if ($trybill < $unchanged) { my $remaining = $unchanged - $trybill; push @results, map {[$trybill, @$_]} change($remaining, $trybill); } elsif ($trybill == $unchanged) { push @results, [$trybill]; } else { last } } return @results; } use Data::Dumper; print Dumper change(100);