Seems a little weird to me. Suppose you have 8 elements, so $n is about 2 and $m is 8. The first element of sub has a 2 in 8 chance of being selected. If it is selected, $n is now 1 and $m is 7, so the next element has a 1 in 7 chance of being selected. If it isn't selected, the next element has a 2 in 7 chance of being selected. In other words, you are going to get the right number of elements returned, but not all elements have an equal chance of being returned.

(Or am I being stupid?)

I suggest that your third line could be:

while (@selected < $n) {
    push @selected, splice(@sub, int rand @sub, 1);
}

[download]

which should ensure an even distribution, is more readable, and only iterates $n times rather than through the whole @sub array. (Copy @sub if you need to preserve the original.)

andramoiennepemousapolutropon

In reply to Re: Selecting array records - code question by dash2
in thread Selecting array records - code question by Anonymous Monk

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