I think this is likely, too. Well, now that you got rid of the small argument to random.
On May 22, 2013, at 6:36 PM, Randy Hengst wrote: > Well Chris, I'm sure you've already tried this, but when this kind of thing > happens to me… in other words, when a script is correct, but the results are > wrong… I've messed something up later in the script with another put > statement that overrides it. Maybe the place in the script where you've > removed the * > > My debugging skills are not top notch… So, I'd brute force things and put an > "answer tPossibleAnswers" after each line to see what is happening… and again > at the end of the handler. > > I'd be interested in what you discover. > > be well, > randy > ----- > On May 22, 2013, at 4:34 PM, Chris Sheffield wrote: > >> Thanks for the suggestions everyone, but I'm still getting strange results, >> and I'm beginning to think there's something I'm doing that's affecting use >> of the random() function. Not really sure what it would be though. Here's my >> code: >> >> set the itemDel to tab >> put "*" & item 3 of sRecSet into tPossibleAnswers -- correct answer >> put cr & item 4 of sRecSet after tPossibleAnswers -- distractor 1 >> put cr & item 5 of sRecSet after tPossibleAnswers -- distractor 2 >> sort lines of tPossibleAnswers by random(999999) -- randomly re-order the >> list >> >> This app pulls words from a database and presents three possible answers to >> choose from. The asterisk above is used to identify the correct answer after >> the sort takes place. It's removed later on. The sort only works randomly >> one time. After that, the same sort order is used every time, so the correct >> answer *always* ends up listed first. It doesn't matter if I use a very high >> number or if I use 'the number of lines of tPossibleAnswers'. Something is >> very strange. Just as a quick test, I added a button to the card with this >> inside: >> >> put "one" & cr & "two" & cr & "three" into tLines >> sort lines of tLines by random(the number of lines of tLines) >> answer tLines >> >> This seems to work just fine. Yes, it does mean getting the same order >> sometimes twice or maybe even three times in a row, but not usually more >> than that, which would be fine in this case. So I'm not sure what's going on >> with my actual code. I'm no longer setting the randomSeed or anything like >> that. >> >> The other strange thing is no matter what I try, if I use the random() >> function or the any keyword in anyway, I get similar results. Something is >> affecting the "randomness". This is for an iOS app, btw, if that makes any >> difference to anyone. This might be kind of a dumb thing to do, but the only >> other thing I can think of would be to add several more lines of data to the >> three actual possible answers, then sort the whole thing, then somehow >> filter out everything I added before the sort. With more lines, maybe I'd >> get better results? >> >> Thanks again, >> Chris >> >> On May 22, 2013, at 3:03 PM, Dar Scott <d...@swcp.com> wrote: >> >>> I think you are going to get the first line of the original list (correct >>> answer) about half the time. Does that seem right to you from what you >>> have seen? The correct answer will be in the first two about 80% of the >>> time. >>> >>> Using the larger argument for random should give you better proportions. >>> You should get it in the first line a third of the time. >>> >>> If you only interested in the first line, there might be some methods that >>> are clearer and more fun. >>> >>> Dar >>> >>> >>> On May 22, 2013, at 11:59 AM, Chris Sheffield wrote: >>> >>>> I have a list of three words that I need to be randomly sorted. To start >>>> with, the first word is the correct answer to a question. I want to >>>> re-order the list so that the correct answer may be the second or third >>>> word, and not necessarily the first. How can I do this successfully every >>>> time? The docs give an example like this: >>>> >>>> sort lines of myVar by random(the number of lines of myVar) >>>> >>>> But this only seems to work successfully one time. After that, the list is >>>> always set so the first word is the correct answer. So then I tried >>>> randomly setting the randomSeed value, since this value is supposed to >>>> affect the random() function and the any keyword, but this didn't seem to >>>> make much difference except to change it so either the second or third >>>> word is *always* the right answer. I need it to be more mixed up than that. >>>> >>>> So does anyone have a good way to do this? >>>> >>>> Thanks, >>>> Chris >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Chris Sheffield >>>> Read Naturally, Inc. >>>> www.readnaturally.com >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> use-livecode mailing list >>>> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >>>> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >>>> subscription preferences: >>>> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> use-livecode mailing list >>> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >>> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >>> subscription preferences: >>> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >> >> _______________________________________________ >> use-livecode mailing list >> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription >> preferences: >> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
