in reply to Re^5: Random sampling a variable length file.
in thread Random sampling a variable record-length file.

How certain are you that this is true? If there is no correlation between any characteristic of interest in a record

Simple. I cannot know what will be inside the file! Because the user may apply the process to any file of their choosing.

So, Just as the polster might discover that the "random selection" they make of the populous, happens to coincidentally consist of the entire membership of some extremist political organisation, they cannot know it will until they take the sample.

Put another way, there may be all manner of correlations, but none of them are known, and so cannot be utilised.

So, at this point, the problem is how to take a statistically valid, random sample of records of any file, without resorting to reading the entire file. I've described the inferences to be drawn elsewhere.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
"I'd rather go naked than blow up my ass"
  • Comment on Re^6: Random sampling a variable length file.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^7: Random sampling a variable length file.
by eye (Chaplain) on Dec 27, 2009 at 21:49 UTC
    ...Just as the polster might discover that the "random selection" they make of the populous, happens to coincidentally consist of the entire membership of some extremist political organisation, they cannot know it will until they take the sample.

    A valid sample may contain every member of an extremist group or only contain records whose lengths are even numbers. What makes the sample valid is the plan for selecting the sample (and adherence to that plan). Developing a sampling plan is non-trivial. It can be aided by things we know theoretically and by observational data. But sometimes you just get atypical samples.

    In this case, I was confused by your statement in another response that "there is no meaningful correlation in the ordering of the records." This sounds like a positive assertion that there is no correlation based on order. This is quite different from the negative assertion that you don't know whether there are order related correlations.

[reply]
      This sounds like a positive assertion that there is no correlation based on order. This is quite different from the negative assertion that you don't know whether there are order related correlations.

      I disagree. I cannot know if there is any correlation in the ordering of the records, therefore, for my purposes, there is no such correlation.

      Put another way, I am constructing an algorithm to process unknown data, and therefore must construct it on the basis that there is no such correlation.

      Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
      "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
      In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
        If you assume any correlation in the ordering of the records, why not to pick, for instance, the first 1000 records?
[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom