InfiniteSilence is correct, of course. Here's what rand's documentation has to say:

rand EXPR

[...]

Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to 0 and less than the value of EXPR.

In your code, @choices is used in scalar context and evaluates to its number of elements; since it's got 49 elements, you're essentially telling Perl that you want to a random number between 0 (inclusive) and 49 (exclusive).

So you're not only occasionally getting zero, you're also never getting the number 49.

In reply to Re: Where is the zero coming from? by AppleFritter
in thread Where is the zero coming from? by Pauleduc

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