in reply to Re: Random string generator
in thread Random string generator

This is really nifty. Paladin++

I have to spell this out; perhaps other monks will appreciate the explination. Please feel free to correct me.

rand @chars takes @chars in scalar context, that is, the length of the array holding our characterset. So rand returns a value somewhere in the array, and that becomes the index for the array lookup.

I keep forgetting you can do cool things like this by implied scalar or array context.

Thanks,
ibanix

$ echo '$0 & $0 &' > foo; chmod a+x foo; foo;

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Re: Re: Re: Random string generator
by bart (Canon) on Feb 06, 2003 at 11:29 UTC
    Don't forget to add that using a floating point number as an array index, does an implied int on the value. In other words: it truncates towards zero. $a[5.9] is the same array element as $a[5], not $a[6].

    A very explicit version would have been: 

    $chars[int rand scalar @chars]

    [download]
    which does exactly the same thing as 
    $chars[rand @chars]

    [download]
    The net effect is that all array indexes have the same change of being chosen.
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