Given two random integer generators one that generates between 1 and 7 and another that generates between 1 and 5, how do you make a random integer generator that generates between 1 and 13? I have tried solving this question in various ways but I have not been able to come up with a solution that generates numbers from 1 to 13 with equal or near equal probability.
+1
A:
Using the top two answers for http://stackoverflow.com/questions/137783, I've come up with the following. There's probably a more efficient way to do this (maybe using the 1-5 generator?) but this seems to work.
Optimized for Compactness
var j;
do {
j = 7 * (rand7() - 1) + rand7(); // uniformly random between 1 and 49
} while (j > 39);
// j is now uniformly random between 1 and 39 (an even multiple of 13)
j = j % 13 + 1;
Optimized for understandability
var v = [
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7],
[8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 1],
[2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8],
[9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 1, 2],
[3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9],
[10, 11, 12, 13, 0, 0, 0],
[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
];
var j = 0;
while (j == 0) {
j = v[rand7() - 1][rand7() - 1];
}
Marc Novakowski
2010-10-13 07:08:53
Lovely solution, thank you very much. :)
Meher
2010-10-13 08:00:26