Skip to content

? Roll, Deal, Permute

Random lists, with or without duplicates

Roll and Deal

Select items randomly, generate random values

    x?y     ?[x;y]          / Roll
neg[x]?y    ?[neg[x];y]     / Deal

Select

Where

  • x is an integer atom
  • y is a list

returns abs[x] randomly selected items of y. Where x is

  • positive items are selected independently (Roll)
  • negative and x>=neg count y, items are selected from different indexes of y (Deal)
q)5?`Arthur`Steve`Dennis
`Arthur`Arthur`Steve`Dennis`Arthur
q)2?("a";0101b;`abc;`the`quick;2012.06m)
`abc
2012.06m
q)-3?`the`quick`brown`fox
`brown`quick`fox

Duplicate items in y

If y contains duplicate items, so may the result of Deal.

q)-2?`bye`bye`blackbird
`bye`bye

Generate

Where

  • x is an int atom
  • y is an atom > 0

returns a list of abs[x] items of the same type as y, generated as follows

right domain (y)     range                            operator
----------------------------------------------------------------
integer >0           til y                            Roll, Deal
0Ng                  GUIDs                            Roll, Deal
float, temporal ≥0   0 to y                           Roll
0i                   ints                             Roll
0                    longs                            Roll, Deal
0b                   01b                              Roll
" "                  .Q.a                             Roll
0x0                  bytes                            Roll
numeric symbol `n    symbols, each of n chars (n≤8)   Roll, Deal
                     from abcdefghijklmnop

Where x is negative (Deal), y must have a positive long or null GUID

q)10?5                                        / roll 10 (5-sided dice)
4 2 1 1 3 2 0 0 2 2
q)-5?20                                       / deal 5
13 11 8 12 19
q)-10?10                                      / first 10 ints in random order
9 3 5 7 2 0 6 1 4 8
q)(asc -10?10)~asc -10?10
1b

q)-1?0Ng                                      / deal 1 GUID
,fd2db048-decb-0008-0176-01714e5eeced
q)count distinct -1000?0Ng                    / deal 1000 GUIDs
1000

q)5?4.5                                       / roll floats
3.13239 1.699364 2.898484 1.334554 3.085937

q)4?2012.09m                                  / roll months
2006.02 2007.07 2007.07 2008.06m

q)30?" "
"tusrgoufcetphltnkegcflrunpornt"

q)16?0x0                                      / roll 16 bytes
0x8c6b8b64681560840a3e178401251b68

q)20?0b                                       / roll booleans
00000110010101000100b

q)10?`3                                       / roll short symbols
`bon`dec`nei`jem`pgm`kei`lpn`bjh`flj`npo
q)rand `6
`nemoad

Roll and Deal return list results

For an atom result, instead of first 1?x, use rand.

Deal of GUID atom

Deal of GUID uses a mix of process ID, current time and IP address to generate the GUID, and successive calls may not allow enough time for the current time reading to change.

q)count distinct {-1?0ng}each til 10  / Deal one GUID ten times
5

The range of GUIDs is large enough that Roll and Deal often return the same result.

q)count distinct 1000000000?0Ng  / Roll a billion GUIDs
1000000000

For a set of distinct GUIDs, use Deal to generate them in one operation

Permute

0N?x

Where x is

  • a non-negative int atom, returns the items of til x in random order
  • a list, returns the items of x in random order

(Since V3.3.)

q)0N?10                         / permute til 10
8 2 4 1 6 0 5 3 7 9
q)0N?5 4 2                      / permute items
4 5 2
q)0N?"abc"                      / permute items
"bac"
q)0N?("the";1 2 4;`ibm`goog)    / permute items
`ibm`goog
1 2 4
"the"

Seed

Deal, Roll, Permute and rand use a constant seed on kdb+ startup: scripts using them can be repeated with the same results. You can see and set the value of the seed with system command \S.)

To use GUIDs as identifiers, use Deal, not Roll

$ q
..
q)1?0Ng                                    / roll 1 GUID
,8c6b8b64-6815-6084-0a3e-178401251b68
q)\\
$ q
..
q)1?0Ng                                    / roll 1 GUID
,8c6b8b64-6815-6084-0a3e-178401251b68
q)\\
$ q
..
q)-1?0Ng                                   / deal 1 GUID
,2afe0040-2a1b-bfce-ef3e-7160260cf992
q)\\
$ q
..
q)-1?0Ng                                   / deal 1 GUID
,753a8739-aa6b-3cb4-2e31-0fcdf20fd2f0

Roll uses the current seed (\S 0N). Deal uses a seed based on process properties and the current time. This means -10?0Ng is different from {first -1?0Ng}each til 10.

Errors

error cause
length neg x exceeds count y
type x is negative (Roll only)

rand
system command \S
command-line option -S