Visual Basic Help

Kazu

i want to print out the alphabet and randomize it so that after a few goes the same letter wont come up twice

nahdoic

are you sure you really don't want your homework done?

tonysoprano

Private Sub GetRandomAlphabet()
Dim sAlphabet As String
Dim nIndex As Integer
Dim nNum As Integer


Do While (Len(sAlphabet)) <> 26
nNum = Int((122 - 97 + 1) * Rnd) + 97 ' Change these values to 65 + 90
' if you want capitals
If InStr(sAlphabet, Chr(nNum)) = 0 Then
sAlphabet = sAlphabet + Chr(nNum)
End If
Loop
lblAlphabet.Caption = sAlphabet

End Sub

Kazu

thank you looks the business

Capt'n Midnight

What you want to do is setup an array of 26 elements
Then step through them and randomly swap the next card with one of the remaining ones.

amen

while the code below produces randome letter arrangements if the program is run multiple times then the 1st,2nd etc set is always the same.

What you need to do is seed the random number generator with a random seed. Normally the date/time is used.
Place Randomize before the Do While Loop
You can pass a value to Randomize if you want but the default is date/time so normally nothing is passed.

Kazu

would you code it please as iam getting more lost

Capt'n Midnight

Pseudo Code

dim l(26)
Do 
 incr x
loop until bored or muppet presses a key 

randomize x 

for n = 26 to 2 step -1
 a = rnd(n) ' pick one of the remaining cards
 swap l(a) , l(n)
next

Imagine you want to carve out some egyption lettering in a Welsh valley only to find out that someone has beaten you to it..

Quartz glyph job vex'd by cwm finks

Kazu

i got it working thanks

Hobbes

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Pseudo Code

dim l(26)
Do 
 incr x
loop until bored or muppet presses a key 

randomize x 

Or just randomize timer at the start of your code should do the trick as well.

Capt'n Midnight

Radomise timer - yeah that's what they do in Freecell..

to set time in batch file

Echo 15:15>15
time<15
program.exe

Hobbes

Echo 15:15>15
time<15
program.exe

Freecell you can just type in the game number. All that does is totally screw up your time on your machine.

Anyway as far as I remember timer generates on milliseconds (could be wrong though). So the random number would vary based on the speed of your machine and what is running.

If he was using it as part of a security check then he should be checking for time changes (amoung other things), otherwise randomize timer is fine.

Capt'n Midnight

AFAIK timer might be linked to the 18.2 ms timer - the one that causes win95/98 to die after 49.7 days

Point is it's only pseudo random - and cheap tricks can get around it..

Hobbes

Random itself is only pseudo random.