From: Brian Adkins <lojicdotcom@...>
Date: 2007-11-28T04:25:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Most elegant way to do this?

On Nov 27, 9:57 am, Eivind Eklund <eekl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you're going to do overkill, do overkill.  You've got an extra
> compare in that main loop, with the check for n-- > 0.

I assume you're just having fun, but even so, if your compiler doesn't
optimize (n-- > 0) to be as efficient as (n--), get a new compiler.

> And it doesn't
> work for negative numbers. Correcting for this (untested):

Yes, rolling a negative number of dice is precluded, it just confuses
people.

> int roll(int n) {
>   int sum = n;
>   if (n > 0) {
>     do {
>       sum += rand() % 6;
>     } while (--n);
>   } else if (n < 0) {
>     do {
>       sum -= rand() % 6;
>     } while (++n);
>   }
>   return sum;
>
> }

You might want to double check that code...

> Of course, this still has the problem that rand() % 6 typically return
> slightly biased numbers, as RAND_MAX is usually a 2^n-1

Ok, here you have a point. The roll function won't cut it in Las
Vegas.

> ;-)
>
> Eivind.