Wil — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 08:22:22 +0000

The easiest thing for you to do would be to place the above sub somewhere WITHIN your current program. That way you can just call it as you would call any other sub using &generate_random_number(1000); but if you put this in a seperate program then you will need to 'require' or 'use' it in at the beginning of your program which basically means more work on your part.

If you're still having difficultes, send me the script to wil@stephens.org and I can make the neccessary ammendmendts.

Cheers

brady.k — Thu, 18 Apr 2002 01:38:26 +0000

i'm getting confused...can i create this as a .pl file...and then call it up WITHIN the program?

i think i have everything else straight

Wil — Wed, 17 Apr 2002 08:39:12 +0000

You can just place the sub

sub generate_random_number {

	my $high = $_;

	my $rand_no = rand($high);

	return $rand_no;

}

within your program. You would call it by calling &generate_random_number(1000); anywhere in your program which will return a random number into $rand_no.

Is this what you're looking for?

Mark Hensler — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:20:22 +0000

The function can go in the same file. But I *think* that the function must be defined before it is called (so just put it as close to the top of the script as you can).

I forgot about sprintf(). That POSIX module is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Wil!

brady.k — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 18:52:50 +0000

ahh...i'm so bad at this...one more
does the code go within the program or as a separate file (such as rand_number.pl)

thanks again, pardon my thickness

brady.k — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 18:49:05 +0000

ok...two more questions...
#1- do i put the #!/usr/local/bin/perl stuff if front?
#2- do i put the number 1000 in the _ ?
thanks

Wil — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 10:14:14 +0000

Quote: Originally posted by Mark Hensler
"fractional number" ... Is the return data type a float? If so, how do you make it a whole number? I didn't see a floor() or round() function (looked here).

Mark

Yes.

For rounding, you have several options:

int, which returns the integer portion of an expression. This is probably not what you're looking for, though.
sprintf, which lets you format your number exactly the way you like it. Remember, there's no real difference betwen string and number variables in perl.
POSIX::ceil or POSIX::floor, which are the equivalent of ceil and floor in C.

See also: [URL=http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlfaq4.html#Does-Perl-have-a-round()-function---What-about-ceil()-and-floor()---Trig-functions-]Does perl have a round function? What about ceil() and floor()? Trig functions?[/URL]

Hope this helps

Wil — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 09:31:38 +0000

Eskater05,

If you wanted this inside a program then I'd put it into a sub, where you can pass an argument to it - the highest number randomly returned sounds a good one in your case.

sub generate_random_number {

	my $high = $_;

	my $rand_no = rand($high);

	return $rand_no;

}

'
You would then call this within your program using:

&generate_random_number(1000);

'
In the above usage example, you want the highest possible random number to be 1000.

Calling your sub will return a random number into $rand_no for you to use within your script (to call your random image, for example).

brady.k — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 23:44:21 +0000

yea...what about a whole number...does it auto pic a whole number?
also...what if this is to be used in a program...and i dont want to print it...Example:
1- Picks a Random number
2- That number then is filed by a program, which then chooses an image based upon that number

Mark Hensler — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 22:22:56 +0000

"fractional number" ... Is the return data type a float? If so, how do you make it a whole number? I didn't see a floor() or round() function (looked here).