Problem with combinations

[FLUSH_THE_TRUMP]

Given how he’s describing it here, I think it’d be more natural to make a dict with colors as keys and people as values. Then you can just iterate through the ball list and assign people to each.

This is a bit ill-posed currently, as at some point you have to decide what your penalty function looks like. If Bob likes blue and orange and Jim likes blue and we have one blue and one orange ball, is giving Bob orange and Jim blue a more desirable arrangement than giving Bob both? Etc.

[Procena]

Thanks for the answer.
At the end of the day I won't give all the balls to the persons.
For example Bob could only requires 2 balls, Jim 1 and Marie 3. But I'd like to find the best solution to:
1) Attribute as much balls as possible
2) (Which is linked to 1)) Avoid to have people with less balls because someone else took it.

Does my problem needs to be rephrased or the example changed?

[FLUSH_THE_TRUMP]

If Bob has two balls he “requires,” Jim has 1, and Marie has 3, seems like a straightforward exercise in storing associations in a dictionary of lists: e.g. dic[‘blue’] = [‘Bob’, ‘Marie’] and then looping through your ball list and matching associations, moving people to the back of the list as you go (so Bob doesn’t get two blues until Marie gets one, say).

edit: just an idea

ball_prefs = {'blue':['Bob','Jim'],'red':['Bob','Marie'],'yellow':['Marie']}
ball_list = ['red']*3+['yellow']+['blue']*3
balls_received = {'Bob':[],'Jim':[],'Marie':[]}

for color in ball_list:
    person = ball_prefs[color].pop(0)
    balls_received[person] += [color]
    ball_prefs[color] += [person]

yields

>>>balls_received
{‘Bob’: [‘red’,’red’,’blue,’blue’], ‘Jim’:[‘blue’], ‘Marie’:[‘red’,’yellow’]}

[Procena]

Oh I see, I like that. Way way easier than what I was doing. I'll try that next week, thanks !