#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use feature qw/say/; use Data::Dumper; use constant MAX => 300000; my %cache; sub collatz_seq {     my $input = shift;     my $n = $input;     my @result;     while ($n != 1) {         if (exists $cache{$n}) {             push @result, @{$cache{$n}};             last;         } else {             my $new_n = $n % 2 ? 3 * $n + 1 : $n / 2;             push @result, $new_n;             $cache{$n} = [$new_n, @{$cache{$new_n}}]                 if defined ($cache{$new_n}) and $n < MAX;             $n = $new_n;         }     }     $cache{$input} = [@result] if $n < MAX;     return @result; } my @long_seqs; for my $num (1..1000000) {     my @seq = ($num, collatz_seq $num);     push @long_seqs, [ $num, scalar @seq] if scalar @seq > 400; } @long_seqs = sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1]} @long_seqs; say  "$_->[0]: $_->[1]" for @long_seqs[0..19]; # say "@{$cache{$long_seqs[0][0]}}";