hi,


i think this should work, but maybe someone has a better/simpler suggestion.

1. String string[] = { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five"};
2. 
   
3. void setup(){
4. }
5. 
   
6. void draw(){
7.  
8.   int time = millis();
9.   int index_before = -1;
10.   int index_now    = -1;
11.  
12.   while( (millis()-time)  <= 20000 ){
13.     while( index_before == (index_now = (int) random(0, string.length)));
14.    
15.     print (string [index_now] + ", ");
16.     index_before = index_now;
17.     delay (500);
18.   }
19.  
20.   print ("exit.");
21.   exit();
22. }

thomas

*WAIT* I now read the question correctly and see that you want numbers to recur not twice in a row. You should probably look to the other response for help.

Look at your logic.
Every frame, you perform a for loop and every cycle of the for loop you get a random number between zero and the number of the cycle, so therefor the most common number is zero and five is the least common.
To answer your first question, there are probably several ways to do this but the only one at the top of my head is with the use of two ArrayLists.
You have two arraylists declared, one of them containing all items at start.
Every frame, a random item from the first arraylist is deleted and moved to the second one.
Simple enough.
I saw this in an earlier forum post but I do not have the link handy.

i think the following is easier to understand (but still basically the same as in my previous post):

1. String string[] = { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five"};
2. void setup(){
3. }
4. void draw(){
5.  
6.   int time = millis();
7.   int index_before = -1;
8.   int index_now    = -1;
9.  
10.   while( (millis()-time) <= 20000 ){
11.     index_now = (int) random(0, string.length);
12.     if( index_now != index_before){
13.       print (string [index_now] + ", ");
14.       index_before = index_now;
15.       delay (500);
16.     }
17.   }
18.  
19.   print ("exit.");
20.   exit();
21. }

the answer to your second question:
if you watch what the for-loop does, you will see why that is happening:


1.iteration:     i is 0 ... and you try to get a random between 0 and 0 (result is always 0)
2.iteration:     i is 1 ... and you try to get a random between 0 and 1 (result is always 0, because of the integer cast)
3.iteration:     i is 2 ... random between 0 and 2 (result can be 0 or 1)
4.iteration:     i is 3 ... random between 0 and 3 (result can be 0...2)
5.iteration:     i is 4 ... random between 0 and 4 (result can be 0...3)
6.iteration:     i is 5 ... random between 0 and 5 (result can be 0...4)
7.iteration:     i is 6 ... random between 0 and 6 (result can be 0...5)

as you can see, the possibilty, to get 0 is much higher than 5 (actually 5 is only possible in the last iteration).


thomas

here is one example with an ArrayList (calsign mentioned it in hist post).

1. String string[] = { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five"};
2. ArrayList str_list = new ArrayList();
3. void setup(){
4.   for(int i = 0; i < string.length; i++)
5.     str_list.add(string[i]);
6. }
7. void draw(){
8.  
9.   int time = millis();
10.   String item = null;
11.  
12.   while( (millis()-time) <= 20000 ){
13.     int index = (int) random(0, str_list.size());
14.     if( item != null )
15.       str_list.add(item);
16.     item = (String) str_list.get(index);
17.     str_list.remove(index);
18.    
19.     print (item + ", ");
20.     delay (500);
21.   }
22.  
23.   print ("exit.");
24.   exit();
25. }

i will make some comments to the code:
index_now/index_before will be -1 just on their initialisation, as you can see, in the while-loop, they get immediatly some new value (between 0 and 5)

1. void draw(){
2.  
3.   int time = millis();
4.   int index_before = -1; // init the variable with an index, that is not 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,or 5
5.   int index_now    = -1; // init the variable with an index, that is not 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5
6.  
7.   while( (millis()-time) <= 20000 ){            // check the time
8.     index_now = (int) random(0, string.length); // here we get a random value between 0 and 5
9.     if( index_now != index_before){             // check if the new index, is not the same index we had before
10.                                                 // in the first iteration, index_before is -1, so we make sure the condition is "true"
11.       print (string [index_now] + ", ");        // if so, print the array-item
12.       index_before = index_now;                 // and save the current index
13.       delay (500);                              // wait 500ms
14.     }
15.   }
16.  
17.   print ("exit.");
18.   exit();
19. }

thanks very much for all the details. It's clear now.