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Data Structures and Algorithms
with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in C# |
Consider the problem a cashier solves every time he counts out some amount of currency. The cashier has at his disposal a collection of notes and coins of various denominations and is required to count out a specified sum using the smallest possible number of pieces.
The problem can be expressed mathematically as follows:
Let there be n pieces of money (notes or coins), 
,
and let 
be the denomination of 
.
For example, if is a dime, then 
.
To count out a given sum of money A
we find the smallest subset of P, say 
,
such that 
.
One way to represent the subset S is to use n variables
, such that
Given 
our objective
is to minimize
subject to the constraint
Copyright © 2001 by Bruno R. Preiss, P.Eng. All rights reserved.