On 23-05-05 10:41AM, Todd C. Miller wrote: > On Fri, 05 May 2023 16:13:01 +1000, Mark Jamsek wrote: > > > I found kn's attempted syntax intuitive though; it feels like a natural > > extension of the existing random and step syntax. I also assumed ~/15 > > would run every 15 minutes starting with a random minute, and since > > discovering it didn't work like that, I've been carrying a simple patch > > that allows kn's syntax: > > > > ~/15 random 15 minute intervals in [0, 59] > > 1~9/10 random 10 minute intervals in [1,59] > > It does seem like people prefer the ~/step syntax over my own, which > is fine. > > However, I'm unsure about the x~y/step syntax. Personally, I think > it would be more natural to treat x~y/step like x-y/step and just > use a random offset in the interval [0,step-1]. Do you have a > use-case for the way your diff handles this or did it just follow > naturally from the random value being in num1? > > Also, using the % operator with the random value results in modulo > bias, which we would like to avoid. If we use a random offset based > on the step interval instead there is no need for the modulus.
Both tbh. I primarily wanted to get intervals that would not fall on common times where I already had jobs running; namely, 0th minutes (e.g., 0, 30). And I described the second example wrong, so this was most likely lost in my first response: > > 1~9/10 random 10 minute intervals in [1,59] The "intervals in [1,59]" is not correct in this example. Rather, this will result in an initial random value 1 <= n <= 9, so each interval in this step /10 case will also fall in [N1,N9] (e.g., 7, 17, 27, ...) and avoid said common times. And the modulo is used to get the first point in [low,high] from which to start the step loop that fit this constraint. In other words, I wanted some control over where the random intervals landed such that being able to avoid ranges was as much a requirement, in my use case, as random steps. But I also didn't want to change the code too much so it just followed naturally. This could be done other ways, too, and I'm not presuming such a requirement is as important to anyone else. -- Mark Jamsek <fnc.bsdbox.org|got.bsdbox.org> GPG: F2FF 13DE 6A06 C471 CA80 E6E2 2930 DC66 86EE CF68
