I am so lost, what should I try?

You are to write a program that will find all the solutions to the following problem. Farmer Joe has exactly 100 dollars to spend on livestock. He needs to buy as many animals as possible. Cows cost 6 dollars, pigs cost 3 dollars, and sheep cost 4 dollars. Output all combinations of animals that Farmer Joe can purchase with out over-spending or under-spending.
Example:
Given the numbers above there are 81 solutions possible.
First solution is: 1 sheep, 0 pigs, 16 cows
Last solution is: 25 sheep, 0 pigs, 0 cows.
To receive an A on this assignment you should allow the user to enter a price for each animal and a total amount of money that Farmer Joe has to spend.

I have no idea how to go about this, and am probably screwed. Can anyone help me on this?

There's 2 basic ways of doing this

The good way will probably be about 20 lines of code, it can do it for as many animals as you like with the same 20 lines of code, which mens you can let your user control what animals, how many types of animal, prices of animals etc. but whoever you're doing the project for might not beleve it was you wot wrote it. It also uses collections and if you havn't been taught these yet your teacher will twig you've had some help. (I'm assuming you're doing this for a class)

If not You can do it the bad way which is how he expects you to do it.

Post which one you wan't and i'll give you a hand.

also, if you select the first way post if you've learnt about class modules yet cos that's the propper way to do it.

I e-mailed my teacher, and he responded with a simple answer. I didn't think he would do it because it was due tomorrow and all... But the answer's really easy. So thanks for trying to help.

Sorry.

Apollo:Will you post the simple answer, please? I would like to see it!

Sam Finch:I would like to see your answer, too, please. (The first one, using class modules).

Thanks for sharing the knowledge!!!

~seaweed

Right I'm going to post the whole .frm file,

Code:

---


VERSION 5.00
Begin VB.Form Form1
  Caption        =  "Form1"
  ClientHeight    =  5100
  ClientLeft      =  60
  ClientTop      =  345
  ClientWidth    =  7305
  LinkTopic      =  "Form1"
  ScaleHeight    =  5100
  ScaleWidth      =  7305
  StartUpPosition =  3  'Windows Default
  Begin VB.ListBox lstResults
      Height          =  1815
      Left            =  1800
      TabIndex        =  11
      Top            =  5880
      Visible        =  0  'False
      Width          =  4815
  End
  Begin VB.CommandButton cmdCalculate
      Caption        =  "Show Choices"
      Height          =  1215
      Left            =  240
      TabIndex        =  10
      Top            =  3840
      Width          =  3135
  End
  Begin VB.CheckBox chkUnderSpending
      Caption        =  "Allow Under Spending"
      Height          =  615
      Left            =  1200
      TabIndex        =  9
      Top            =  3120
      Width          =  2055
  End
  Begin VB.TextBox txtMoney
      Height          =  285
      Left            =  2880
      TabIndex        =  8
      Text            =  "100"
      Top            =  240
      Width          =  615
  End
  Begin VB.CommandButton cmdRemove
      Caption        =  "Remove"
      Height          =  495
      Left            =  1200
      TabIndex        =  4
      Top            =  2640
      Width          =  2295
  End
  Begin VB.CommandButton cmdAdd
      Caption        =  "Add"
      Height          =  495
      Left            =  1200
      TabIndex        =  3
      Top            =  2160
      Width          =  2295
  End
  Begin VB.TextBox txtPrice
      Height          =  495
      Left            =  1200
      TabIndex        =  2
      Text            =  "6"
      Top            =  1680
      Width          =  2295
  End
  Begin VB.TextBox txtAnimal
      Height          =  495
      Left            =  1200
      TabIndex        =  1
      Text            =  "Cow"
      Top            =  1200
      Width          =  2295
  End
  Begin VB.ListBox lstAnimals
      Height          =  3765
      Left            =  3600
      TabIndex        =  0
      Top            =  1200
      Width          =  3375
  End
  Begin VB.Label Label3
      AutoSize        =  -1  'True
      Caption        =  "Give Farmer Jones  $"
      Height          =  195
      Left            =  1320
      TabIndex        =  7
      Top            =  240
      Width          =  1500
  End
  Begin VB.Label Label2
      Caption        =  "Price"
      Height          =  495
      Left            =  120
      TabIndex        =  6
      Top            =  1800
      Width          =  855
  End
  Begin VB.Label Label1
      Caption        =  "Name"
      Height          =  375
      Left            =  120
      TabIndex        =  5
      Top            =  1320
      Width          =  855
  End
End
Attribute VB_Name = "Form1"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = False
Option Explicit

Dim collPrices As New Collection
Dim collNames As New Collection

Private Sub cmdAdd_Click()

On Error Resume Next
AddAnimal txtAnimal.Text, CLng(txtPrice.Text)

End Sub

Private Sub cmdCalculate_Click()
Dim collReturn As Collection
Dim varTemp As Variant

lstResults.Clear

Set collReturn = CalculateChoices(CloneCollection(collNames), CloneCollection(collPrices), CLng(txtMoney.Text), chkUnderSpending.Value)

For Each varTemp In collReturn

    lstResults.AddItem CStr(varTemp)

Next varTemp


Form1.WindowState = vbMaximized

lstResults.Move 0, 0, Form1.Width, Form1.Height

lstResults.Visible = True

End Sub

Private Sub cmdRemove_Click()
RemoveAnimal lstAnimals.ListIndex
End Sub

Private Sub AddAnimal(Name As String, Price As Long)

collPrices.Add Price
collNames.Add Name

lstAnimals.AddItem Name & "  $" & CStr(Price)

End Sub

Private Sub RemoveAnimal(Index As Integer)

collPrices.Remove (Index)
collNames.Remove (Index)
lstAnimals.RemoveItem (Index)

End Sub


Private Sub Form_Load()
AddAnimal "Cow", 6
AddAnimal "Sheep", 4
AddAnimal "Pig", 3
End Sub


Private Function CloneCollection(Model As Collection) As Collection

Dim varTemp As Variant
Dim collOutput As New Collection


    For Each varTemp In Model
   
        collOutput.Add varTemp

    Next varTemp

Set CloneCollection = collOutput

End Function


Private Function CalculateChoices(Names As Collection, Prices As Collection, SpendingMoney As Long, AllowUnderSpending As Boolean) As Collection

Dim lngPrice As Long
Dim strName As String
Dim collOutput As New Collection
Dim i As Integer
Dim dblMaxPurchace As Double
Dim collReturn As New Collection
Dim varTemp As Variant


lngPrice = Prices.Item(1)
strName = Names.Item(1)

Prices.Remove (1)
Names.Remove (1)


dblMaxPurchace = SpendingMoney / lngPrice

Select Case Prices.Count

    Case 0
   
        If AllowUnderSpending Then
   
            For i = Fix(dblMaxPurchace) To 0 Step -1
           
                collOutput.Add CStr(i) & " " & strName & IIf(i = 1, "", "s") & "." & vbTab & "$" & CStr(SpendingMoney - (i * lngPrice)) & " Remaining."
           
            Next i
           
        Else
           
            If dblMaxPurchace = Fix(dblMaxPurchace) Then
           
                collOutput.Add CStr(CLng(dblMaxPurchace)) & " " & strName & IIf(dblMaxPurchace = 1, "", "s") & "."
               
            End If
           
        End If
   
    Case Else
   
        For i = Fix(dblMaxPurchace) To 0 Step -1
       
            Set collReturn = CalculateChoices(CloneCollection(Names), CloneCollection(Prices), SpendingMoney - (i * lngPrice), AllowUnderSpending)
           
            For Each varTemp In collReturn
           
                collOutput.Add CStr(i) & " " & strName & IIf(i = 1, "", "s") & ", " & varTemp
           
            Next varTemp
           
        Next i
   
End Select

Set CalculateChoices = collOutput


End Function

Private Sub lstResults_DblClick()
lstResults.Visible = False
Form1.WindowState = vbNormal
End Sub

---

basicly cut and paste everything in the code brackets to notepad and save it with a .frm extension. The add a form to an exe and load this file, Remove the other form and set this one as the startup object.

I changed my mind about class modules, they're usually what you want for this sort of thing but not today.

Most of the code is just obvious user interface stuff, the clonecollectinon function creates an identical copy of the collection you pass it so you can effectivly pass collections around by value.

the calculatechoices function is the meat of it, it's a bit bigger than I expected but what the hell.

what it does is gets the 2 collections, prices and names and checks how many items there are in the collection, if ther's just one it returns a collection with all the options if you only had one type of animal, ie you've got $100, Sheep are $5, how many sheep can you buy?

if there's more than one item in the collection then it removes the first item and calls itself with the new collection once for each option it has of how many animals to purchace ie you have $100, sheep are $5 so you can but 1,2,3,3,4,...,19 or 20 sheep.

when it gets it's back a collection it adds it's own data to it and adds it to it's own intermnal collection. then when it's exausted all it's buting options it returns that collection.

I'ts much harder to explain than it is to do, read through the code and try to see whats going on. or try running it through using F8.

Hope this helps