How do I pick randomly from an array

Question

I want to know if there is a much cleaner way of doing this  Basically  I want to pick a random element from an array of variable length   Normally  I would do it like this   myArray     stuff    widget    ruby    goodies    java    emerald    etc    item   myArray rand myarray length     Is there something that is more readable   simpler to replace the second line  Or is that the best way to do it  I suppose you could do myArray shuffle first  but I only saw  shuffle a few minutes ago on SO  I haven t actually used it yet

User · Answer

myArray sample   will return 1 random value   myArray shuffle first   will also return 1 random value

User · Answer

Random Number of Random Items from an Array def random items array    array sample 1   rand array count   end   Examples of possible results  my array     quot one quot    quot two quot    quot three quot   my array sample 1   rand my array count      gt    quot two quot    quot three quot     gt    quot one quot    quot three quot    quot two quot     gt    quot two quot

User · Answer

arr    1 9 5 2 4 9 5 8 7 9 0 8 2 7 5 8 0 2 9  arr rand arr count     This will return a random element from array   If You will use the line mentioned below  arr 1 rand arr count     then in some cases it will return 0 or nil value   The line mentioned below  rand number    always return the value from 0 to number-1   If we use  1 rand number    then it may return number and arr number  contains no element

User · Answer

Just use Array sample     foo   bar  sample     gt   foo  or  bar  -    It is available in Ruby 1 9 1   To be also able to use it with an earlier version of Ruby  you could  require  backports 1 9 1 array sample    Note that in Ruby 1 8 7 it exists under the unfortunate name choice  it was renamed in later version so you shouldn t use that   Although not useful in this case  sample accepts a number argument in case you want a number of distinct samples

User · Answer

myArray sample x  can also help you to get x random elements from the array

User · Answer

class String    def black     return   e 30m  self  e 0m    end    def red     return   e 31m  self  e 0m    end    def light green     return   e 32m  self  e 0m    end    def purple     return   e 35m  self  e 0m    end    def blue dark     return   e 34m  self  e 0m    end    def blue light     return   e 36m  self  e 0m    end    def white     return   e 37m  self  e 0m    end     def randColor     array color             e 30m  self  e 0m           e 31m  self  e 0m           e 32m  self  e 0m           e 35m  self  e 0m           e 34m  self  e 0m           e 36m  self  e 0m           e 37m  self  e 0m           return array color rand 0  array color size     end   end puts  black  black puts  red  red puts  light green  light green puts  purple  purple puts  dark blue  blue dark puts  light blue  blue light puts  white  white puts  random color  randColor

[ruby] How do I pick randomly from an array?

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