Re: suggestion/request for random sampling from a List (Collection)

[Sven Thommesen]

At 10:07 AM 9/2/1997 -0400, you wrote:
>
>I very often find myself writing codes to pick an
>agent out of a list (and sometimes other collections) 
>at random (ie a uniform random sample with replacement). 
>It would be nice if List (and perhaps other collections) had 
>a method
>  myA = [myList getRandom];
>To support this, one would be required to tell the list
>what generator to use, so that it would be under the user's control
>(in particular, so seed/sequence would be replicable).
>

But perhaps the default should be that every list object is connected to
the UniformUnsigned object supplied in simtools on creation; that way even
the casual swarmer would have a List that works out-of-the-box. 

Though there has been some discussion whether we ought to supply those
random objects in simtools at all ... Anyone have comments on that ?

-Sven Thommesen

>If there are others who would like this, perhaps it could
>be put on some "To-Add" list for the core libs.
>
>thanks.
> - r
>
>ps maybe I should just do this with a C macro...
>   still, for agent based models, it seems like a 
>   pretty common action, so it would be generally useful in the core.
>
>Rick Riolo                       address@hidden


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