Re: Random text generation

[Eric Dimick Eastman <erice@ONTKO.COM>]

Tony,

I attached a "poor man's random number generator" I wrote in SQR.  If
you seed it with the same number, you can reproduce sets of "random"
numbers.  If you use a different seed each time (say the current
date-time) it produces pretty good random numbers.  You could use this
to get your string:

#include 'random.sqh'
begin-program

do start_random(5)  !this is the seed

move 0 to #count
while #count < 3
   do get_random(1, 36, #index)
   let $char = substr('0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', #index, 1)
   concat $char with $random_string
   add 1 to #count
end-while
end-program

Hope this helps,
Eric

Dorman, Tony wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I have a need to generate a random emplid to be used in a select statement.  
>The emplid is a mixture of text and numeric characters (such as "B2D7XG").  If 
>I can generate the first three characters, I'll be able to use the 'LIKE' 
>operand and get a decent sample.  Has anyone developed code for a situation 
>such as this?  Any advice will be appreciated.  Thanks!
>
>                                                                               
> - Tony
>
>

#DEFINE RANDOM_NUM1 112792783
#DEFINE RANDOM_NUM2 9893

begin-procedure start_random(#random_seed)
let #_random_number = mod(#random_seed, {RANDOM_NUM2}) / {RANDOM_NUM2}
end-procedure start_random

begin-procedure get_random(#low, #high, :#return)
add .001 to #_random_number
let #temp = #_random_number * {RANDOM_NUM1}
let #_random_number = mod(#temp, {RANDOM_NUM2}) / {RANDOM_NUM2}

let #range = #high - #low
let #return = #_random_number * #range + #low
let #return = round(#return, 0)
end-procedure get_random