OpenEuphoria

Re: 32-bit random numbers

• Posted by Derek Parnell <ddparnell at bigpond.com> Jul 05, 2004
• 544 views

Tommy Carlier wrote:
> 
> Juergen Luethje wrote:
> > return remainder(x, floor(n)) + 1
> 
> There might be a bug in here: you want a random number between 1 and n, so n
> should
> also be a possible value.
> If x is n, remainder(x, floor(n)) will return 0 instead of n: n can never be
> the result
> of remainder(x, floor(n)).
> I think you can solve this by changing it to: remainder(x + 1, floor(n)).

Hmmm...?

Doesn't remainder(X,N) return a value between 0 and N-1 inclusive? And if
we want a result that is between 1 and N, then we just add 1 to the result
of the remainder() call. Which is what Juergen did.

Using your suggestion, we still get a a value between 0 and floor(n)-1
inclusive. 

For example:
   remainder(100, 100) + 1 = 1 // Juergen
   remainder(100 + 1, 100) = 1 // Tommy

that is okay, but what about this...

   remainder(99, 100) + 1 = 100 // Juergen
   remainder(99 + 1, 100) = 0   // Tommy

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia