Hi News123 Thank You for helping me out. Indeed i am not looking for the code but rather for hints that direct my reasoning as well as hints as to how to write basic programs like this.
You have broken down the approach into 2 parts. I have tried to solve part 1 but i'm not quite there yet. Here's my code: def can_buy(n_nuggets): for a in range (1,n_nuggets): for b in range (1,n_nuggets): for c in range (1,n_nuggets): if 6*a+9*b+20*c==n_nuggets: #print a,b,c,'n_nuggets=',n_nuggets return True else: return False can_buy(55) as you can see i am trying to loop through all combinations of values bewtween 1 and n_nuggets and when the equation resolves it should return True, else it should return False. I was hoping that when i then call my function and ask it to test a value nothing happens. What is wrong? My syntax? My semantic? Both? tnx Baba -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list