Random Array Item

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Jan 7 ’11

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Random Array Item

From 1.8.7 on, there is the Array#shuffle method.

[1,2,3].shuffle # => [2,1,3]

This makes it extremely easy to write Array#random to pick a random item from an array

class Array
  def random
    shuffle.first
  end
end

[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9].random # => 5
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9].random # => 1
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9].random # => 3

This tip was submitted by Justin Baker.

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Justin Baker submitted this to rubyquicktips

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