In general, greedy algorithms have five components:

• A candidate set, from which a solution is created
• A selection function, which chooses the best candidate to be added to the solution
• A feasibility function, that is used to determine if a candidate can be used to contribute to a solution
• An objective function, which assigns a value to a solution, or a partial solution, and
• A solution function, which will indicate when we have discovered a complete solution

Greedy algorithms produce good solutions to some mathematical problems, but not on others.