Hi Monks

I want to divide a list of strings into substrings. Following rules should be met:

* It must be able to set together each string with a set of substrings.

* The length of each substring should be at least 3 characters.

* The length ($len) of all substrings added together (+2 penalty for each substring) should be as small as possible.

An example: The list @list should give as result e.g. the list of substrings @expected_substrings. The length $len gives for this example 46.

my @list=("set abcde-efghi 12345",
          "set abcde-ijkl 12345",
          "clr abcde-efghi+123",
          "clr abcde-ijkl 12345");

my @expected_substrings=("set","clr"," abcde-","efghi",
                         "ijkl"," 12345","+123"); 
my $len=@expected_substrings*2; 
$len+=length($_) foreach @expected_substrings;
[download]

Do you have any brilliant idea how to solve this without using long loops with many trials?

Many Thanks