Re: Ada2005 random

[Dale Stanbrough <dstanbro@bigpond.net.au>]

Randy Brukardt wrote:

> I needed that for a 'choosing' algorithm, say drawing balls one by one
> out of a bowl. If you have 8 balls originally, you're choosing 1 out of
> 7, then 1 out of 6, etc. If you try to use 1 out of 8 the whole time and
> discarding the useless ones, the second last draw can take a very long
> time (only 2 out of 8 choices are meaningful). I'm pretty sure that this
> is a valid technique; certainly the underlying float generator is still
> random (at least as much as it ever was!), and the use of that result is
> unbiased.
> 
> While it would be nice if Ada supported this directly, it's easy enough
> to write it yourself.



How about


   for i in reverse 8..2 loop

      put (random (blah) mod i);

   end loop;


?

dale