puzzle - What is a good non-recursive algorithm for deciding whether a passed in amount can be built additively from a set of numbers?

Question

What is a non recursive algorithm for deciding whether a passed in amount can be built additively from a set of numbers.
In my case I'm determining whether a certain currency amount (such as $40) can be met by adding up some combination of a set of bills (such as $5, $10 and $20 bills). That is a simple example, but the algorithm needs to work for any currency set (some currencies use funky bill amounts and some bills may not be available at a given time).
So $50 can be met with a set of ($20 and $30), but cannot be met with a set of ($20 and $40). The non-recursive requirement is due to the target code base being for SQL Server 2000 where the support of recursion is limited.
In addition this is for supporting a multi currency environment where the set of bills available may change (think a foreign currency exchange teller for example).

Answer 1

You have twice stated that the algorithm cannot be recursive, yet that is the natural solution to this problem. One way or another, you will need to perform a search to solve this problem. If recursion is out, you will need to backtrack manually.

Pick the largest currency value below the target value. If it's match, you're done. If not, push the current target value on a stack and subtract from the target value the picked currency value. Keep doing this until you find a match or there are no more currency values left. Then use the stack to backtrack and pick a different value.

Basically, it's the recursive solution inside a loop with a manually managed stack.