Randomize a List problem

[John Keith]

A few more random observations about the original (incorrect) RANL program:

The first iteration does nothing because the argument for ROLLD can never be greater than 1. The program would run faster starting 2 t FOR n...

The first element in the list can't move until the last iteration and has only 1 chance in n of ever doing so.

The indices of the permutations (see post #12) that the program can return are curious indeed:

Code:


{ 1 2 3 }
  1, 2, 3, 5

{ 1 2 3 4 }
  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 19, 20

{ 1 2 3 4 5 }
  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 49, 50, 51, 53, 73, 74, 77, 97, 98, 101

For a list of 6 elements, the first 24 permutations are returned, and the last 101 are not. The rest of the list is similarly chaotic.

Note that I have used lists of 1..n rather than n..1 as in HLIB's first post.