#18401 [Opn->Fbk]: shuffle() broken

From: Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 06:30:52 +0000
Subject: #18401 [Opn->Fbk]: shuffle() broken
References: 1  Groups: php.bugs 
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ID: 18401 Updated by: kalowsky@php.net Reported By: adam@trachtenberg.com -Status: Open +Status: Feedback Bug Type: Arrays related Operating System: Redhat 7.3 PHP Version: 4CVS-2002-07-18 New Comment: I'm pretty Brad has been playing with this code. Can you test again, and report back with a new snapshot? Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-07-18 01:03:51] adam@trachtenberg.com The shuffle() function in the CVS is (still) broken. It does not correctly generate all possible combinations of the array. (I know this function was recently updated, this test is with new version.) Here is a diff to fix the problem: --- array.c Thu Jul 18 00:50:54 2002 +++ array.new.c Thu Jul 18 00:49:35 2002 @@ -1441,7 +1441,7 @@ { Bucket **elems, *temp; HashTable *hash; - int j, n_elems, cur_elem = 0, rnd_idx, n_left; + int j, n_elems, rnd_idx, n_left; n_elems = zend_hash_num_elements(Z_ARRVAL_P(array)); @@ -1457,13 +1457,12 @@ elems[j++] = temp; while (--n_left) { rnd_idx = php_rand(TSRMLS_C); - RAND_RANGE(rnd_idx, cur_elem, n_left, PHP_RAND_MAX); - if (rnd_idx != cur_elem) { - temp = elems[cur_elem]; - elems[cur_elem] = elems[rnd_idx]; + RAND_RANGE(rnd_idx, 0, n_left, PHP_RAND_MAX); + if (rnd_idx != n_left) { + temp = elems[n_left]; + elems[n_left] = elems[rnd_idx]; elems[rnd_idx] = temp; } - cur_elem++; } HANDLE_BLOCK_INTERRUPTIONS(); Here is some PHP that will reproduce the problem. As you can see the built-in shuffle() only generates 3 of the 6 possible combinations, while the userland array_shuffle() correctly generates all 6 with equal likelyhood. <?php function array_shuffle(&$array) { $i = count($array); while (--$i) { $j = mt_rand(0, $i); if ($i != $j) { /* swap elements */ $tmp = $array[$j]; $array[$j] = $array[$i]; $array[$i] = $tmp; } } } function test($function) { $a = array(); for ($i = 0; $i < 10000; $i++) { $p = range(1,3); $function($p); $s = join('', $p); $a[$s]++; } print "$function\n"; foreach($a as $k => $v) { print "$k: $v\n"; } } test('shuffle'); test('array_shuffle'); ?> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=18401&edit=1

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