Perl Language Randomness Accessing an array element at random
Example
my @letters = ( 'a' .. 'z' ); # English ascii-bet
print $letters[ rand @letters ] for 1 .. 5; # prints 5 letters at random
How it works
rand EXPRexpects a scalar value, so@lettersis evaluated in scalar context- An array in scalar context returns the number of elements it contains (26 in this case)
rand 26returns a random fractional number in the interval0 ≤ VALUE < 26. (It can never be26)- Array indices are always integers, so
$letters[rand @letters]≡$letters[int rand @letters] - Perl arrays are zero-indexed, so
$array[rand @array]returns$array[0],$array[$#array]or an element in between
(The same principle applies to hashes)
my %colors = ( red => 0xFF0000,
green => 0x00FF00,
blue => 0x0000FF,
);
print ( values %colors )[rand keys %colors];
