Subject: RE: A little Divinitation with generate-id()?
From: Kay Michael <Michael.Kay@xxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 09:58:55 +0100
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> Assuming I have 8 possible outcomes, I would want to randomly
> call one of them
>
> Of course, I suppose, generate-id() is the ideal way to go,
Absolutely not. There is no guarantee at all that the identifiers generated
by generate-id() have any useful randomness propoerties. For example, they
could all end in "0" - it's entirely up to the implementer. In Saxon, id's
ending in "1" are much more likely than any other value.
If you don't care about good randomness, you could use "string-length(/) mod
8", but really I think you need an external function here.
Mike Kay
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