Randomizing in Java

Question

I have 4 Strings to represent people and 4 Strings to represent names.

I'm trying to randomize them so that every time I start my application, my four people will have different names, but no one can have the same name during runtime.

Example:

String person_one; String person_two; String person_three; String person_four; String name_one = "Bob"; String name_two = "Jane"; String name_three = "Tim"; String name_four = "Sara";

Hope this makes some sense.

What have you tried? Have you ever done anything similar, in another language or with different data that you think could be useful here? — Edd
– Edd, Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 15:00
You could look at my earlier answer which is similar to this problem. stackoverflow.com/a/12795958/713414 — Jayy
– Jayy, Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 15:00
It makes sense.. it's just a little trickier than first-glance suggests. — Caffeinated
– Caffeinated, Commented Oct 17, 2012 at 15:01

Joey · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-17 15:08:02Z

9

You can use Collections.shuffle():

List<String> names = new ArrayList<String>(); names.add("Bob"); names.add("Jane"); names.add("Tim"); names.add("Sara"); Collections.shuffle(names); person_one = names.get(0); person_two = names.get(1); person_three = names.get(2); person_four = names.get(3);

edited Oct 17, 2012 at 15:08

answered Oct 17, 2012 at 15:00

Joey

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6 Comments

EGHDK Over a year ago

This is awesome. Had no idea java had something like this. Perfect. Thanks guys.

Baz Over a year ago

@Joey You might want to use names.get(i) instead of names[i] and Collections.shuffle(names) instead of names.shuffle() ;)

Joey Over a year ago

Baz: Argh, that's what I get for a Java detour while doing C# :-)

Tulains Córdova Over a year ago

@EGHDK Java has one of the most complete and best thought out APIs there is.

Joey Over a year ago

user1598390, that may well be subject to debate. A lot of places in Java's APIs are horrible.

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Greg Kramida · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-17 15:00:59Z

2

You can use Collections.shuffle().

answered Oct 17, 2012 at 15:00

Greg Kramida

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