Hello, Monks. I am very new here, (my first post) and am trying to learn perl. For my first little exercise, I am trying to write a script to print out a series of 6 random lotto numbers. I have loaded an array with numbers 1to 49, and even printed it out to make sure it was loaded correctly. However, when the program runs, it occasionally ends up with a zero as on of my lucky picks, and I have no idea where this is coming from, as it is not one of the 49 choices! 
#!/usr/bin/perl
# Program to pick 6 random & unique lottery numbers from a list of 49.
# 
#
# use strict;
use warnings;

$loop = 50;                       # number of picks to make
while ($loop) {

  @choices = (1 .. 49);           # list of available numbers
# print "@choices \n";            # just for testing
  $count = 5;                     # number of picks less 1
  @picks = ();                    # initialize/clear the array

  $num = rand(@choices);          # get 1st random pick
  push (@picks, $num);            # and load it into array

  while ($count) {                # now get 5 more numbers
    $num = rand(@choices);
    if ($num ~~ @picks) {         # if we already have this number, tr
+y again
      next;
    }                             # end if

    push (@picks, $num);          # add new number to list
    $count -- ;                   # decrement count and get another nu
+mber
  }                               # end while $count

  @picks = sort { $a <=> $b } @picks;
  printf ("Lucky numbers:  %02d %02d %02d %02d %02d %02d \n\n", @picks
+);

  $loop -- ;                      # decrement counter
}                                 # end while $loop
exit;

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In reply to Where is the zero coming from? by Pauleduc

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