Seems to me, the problem is that its performance would go down, when the number of sections goes up. It is an ~o(n), and the internal random() is o(1).

Using a modified binary search, you can get O(log n) performance. You'll need to precompute @acc_arr instead of building it on the fly, of course. See Math::IntervalSearch, though that's not optimized for the random number generation case.

If the weights aren't too vastly different (for example, [(1) x 1000, 1_000_000]), you can get a O(1) solution by slicing up @acc_arr into equal-sized intervals. Details left as an exercise for the reader. Update: This is roughly what dga is proposing. With care, it's possible to remove the rounding-off from his solution.

In reply to Re: Re: Weighted random numbers generator by no_slogan
in thread Weighted random numbers generator by spurperl

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.