From: Ilmari Heikkinen <kig@...>
Date: 2004-12-15T09:24:31+09:00
Subject: [ANN] rand.rb 0.9: Random access methods for Enumerables

Hello all, here's a little convenience library we whipped up a couple 
weeks back with Christian Neukirchen. It's very simple, but we hope 
someone might find it useful :)
---

rand.rb is a library for picking random elements and shuffling.
This work is licensed under the same terms as Ruby itself.

Overview
========
rand.rb adds new methods to Enumerable, Array, and Hash to:

     * return a random element (pick, pick_index, pick_key, pick_value 
and their destructive versions suffixed with !).
     * arrange elements in new, random order (shuffle, 
shuffle_hash_pairs, shuffle_hash).
     * use above methods in convenient ways (each_random, map_random).

It also provides these new facilities to String:

     * shuffle_chars, to arrange the characters of the string in new 
order.
     * pick_byte, pick_char and pick_index, to return random bytes, 
characters or elements.

Examples:

arr = (1..10).to_a
arr.pick # => 3
arr.pick # => 7
arr.shuffle # => [3,5,2,10,8,7,6,1,9,4]

str = "string strung strong rang"
str.pick_char # => 'n'
str.pick_byte # => 97
str.shuffle_chars # => "srsntnignrgrgttsuan  r og"

hash = {'a'=>2, 'b'=>3, 'c'=>4}
hash.pick! #=> ['c', 4]
hash #=> {'a'=>2, 'b'=>3}
hash.pick_key #=> 'b'
hash.pick_value #=> 2

File.open("foo"){|f|
   f.each_random{|line|  puts line } # about equal to 
readlines.shuffle.each{...}
}

History
=======
     * November 26, 2004: Initial version done as IRC collaboration 
project between kig and chris2.
     * November 29, 2004: First public release 0.9.

Getting it
==========
rand.rb is packaged in RPA.
rpa install rand

You can download rand.rb at:
http://kronavita.de/chris/data/rand-0.9.0.tar.gz

Upstream source:
You can get latest development releases using darcs by executing:

darcs get http://kronavita.de/chris/data/rand

darcs send is the preferred way to send patches, but mailing diffs is 
fine too.

Authors
=======
     * Ilmari Heikkinen: Code and unit tests
     * Christian Neukirchen: Documentation and housekeeping.

Please mail bugs, feature requests or patches to the mail addresses 
above or use IRC to contact the developers.

Copyright
=========
Copyright  2004 Ilmari Heikkinen < kig misfiring net >
Parts Copyright  2004 Christian Neukirchen < chneukirchen gmail com >

P.S. I guess it's bad mojo to start versions from 0.9, but it _is_ very 
simple