Randomly Mix Up an Array..??

[cypher175]

Is there any Function or way to Mix Up an Array once it has been made..??

So say I have an Array like this:

Dim $Grid[5]
$Grid[0]="A"
$Grid[1]="B"
$Grid[2]="C"
$Grid[3]="D"
$Grid[4]="E"
_ArrayDisplay($Grid)

Now I want to Mix it up - Randomly Rearrange it..

So when I do another _ArrayDisplay($Grid) it will display the array all randomly Mixed up like..

$Grid[0]="B"
$Grid[1]="D"
$Grid[2]="E"
$Grid[3]="A"
$Grid[4]="C"

Is there anyway or function that can do this at all..??

[Nutster]

You could do a version of a sorting algorithm, but instead of putting things in order, put things randomly.

; Untested code, may still need to be debugged.  Only provided to illustrate an idea.

Global $I, $Tmp, $A
Global $Cards[52] = ['AS', '2S', '3S', ... 'QC', 'KC']  ;  I am not going to type out all 52 elements for an example.

For $I = 0 To 51 ; Size of array
    ; Find a location to swap the current element with.
    $A = Random(0, 51, 1) 
    ; Do not bother to swap if the two locations are the same
    If $A <> $I Then 
        ; Perform actual swap
        $Tmp = $Cards[$A]
        $Cards[$A] = $Cards[$I]
        $Cards[$I] = $Tmp
    Endif
Next
; Ok, so now things are scrambled.

I hope this helps.

[cypher175]

You sure there's no other simpler way to randomly mixup an array once its already been made..??

[cageman]

_ArrayPermute()

look at that function in the helpfile.

[GEOSoft]

That looks pretty simple to me and, like Nutster pointed out, it may need some fine tuning.

Why can't you just create the array and then randomly call the elements? That's almost as good. I use that when randomizing large (8k to 40k row) databases.