14 Feb
2009
14 Feb
'09
11:46 a.m.
Am Samstag, 14. Februar 2009 16:37 schrieb Heinrich Apfelmus:
That of course begs the question whether there is a faster but purely
No, it didn't beg any question. (Sorry for being a humourless pedant here)
functional algorithm for generating random permutations without indexes and arrays?
The answer is a resounding "yes" and the main idea is that shuffling a list is *essentially the same* as sorting a list; the minor difference being that the former chooses a permutation at random while the latter chooses a very particular permutation, namely the one that sorts the input.
For the full exposition, see
Excellent work, thanks.
Regards, apfelmus
Cheers, Daniel