Given a set of N stamp values (e.g., {1 cent, 3 cents}) and an upper limit K to the number of stamps that can fit on an envelope, calculate the largest unbroken list of postages from 1 cent to M cents that can be created.
For example, consider stamps whose values are limited to 1 cent and 3 cents; you can use at most 5 stamps. It's easy to see how to assemble postage of 1 through 5 cents (just use that many 1 cent stamps), and successive values aren't much harder:
- 6 = 3 + 3
- 7 = 3 + 3 + 1
- 8 = 3 + 3 + 1 + 1
- 9 = 3 + 3 + 3
- 10 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 1
- 11 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 1
- 12 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3
- 13 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1.
However, there is no way to make 14 cents of postage with 5 or fewer stamps of value 1 and 3 cents. Thus, for this set of two stamp values and a limit of K=5, the answer is M=13.
The most difficult test case for this problem has a time limit of 3 seconds.