Trying to get random State from cstates()

[mpatrizio]

I am having trouble getting random states from the cstates() function. In the end, I am trying to fill a database with random data so I can test performance and functionality with a larger recordset.

1) I am seeing that if you ? print the value of the round function it will ignore the decimal places if nothing else is printed on the line.
2) I can create a crlf list of states, but initializing the array does not enter the values into the array.

Can you see what I am doing wrong?

Here is the code that I am using:

Dim strStatesList As C
Dim strStatesList1 As C
Dim strState As C
dim myStates[79] AS P
Dim iState As N

'set variable istate to get a random number between 1 and 78 
iState = ROUND((RAND() * 78),0) 'round to nearest integer with no decimals

'View strange decimal behavior
? iState + ("<br>")
? iState
? "<br>"
? int(iState)
? "<br>" + "The first will print without decimals, the next two will, and to the right will not: " + int(iState)

'Use the built in function to get list of states 
strStatesList1 = cstates("S" + ",") ' Put that list into a comma separated list
strStatesList  = comma_to_crlf(strStatesList1) ' convert that list into crlf (unneeded step if replace "," in above line with crlf()
? "<br> How many lines are in strStatesList = " + line_count(strStatesList)
? "<br> 79 is the correct number of lines"

'Using the above list create an array using the initialize function
myStates.initialize(strStatesList)
? "<br>Here is the list of states in the array: " + myStates.dump()
strState = myStates[iState]
? "<br>This is the random state choosen: " + strState

[madtowng]

Re: Trying to get random State from cstates()

I stayed as close to what you started with as I could.
I used a loop to get the values into your pointer variable.
I changed istate to be a value between 1 and 79 so that it could hit any of the 79 items.
I am sure someone will let us know if there is a more graceful way to do that.

dim strStatesList[79] as c
dim strStatesList1[79] as c
dim myStates[79] as p
dim istate as n

strStatesList.initialize(cstates("A" + crlf()))
strStatesList1.initialize(cstates("S" + crlf()))

istate = round(rand()*79,0)

? istate
= 49

? int(istate)
= 49

? istate+" "+strStatesList[istate]+" "+strStatesList1[istate]
= "49 WI Wisconsin"
for loop = 1 to 79
#myStates[loop].abbrev = strStatesList[loop]
#myStates[loop].name = strStatesList1[loop]
#myStates[loop].sequence = loop
#next loop
? myStates[istate]
= abbrev = "WI"
name = "Wisconsin"
sequence = 49

[mpatrizio]

Re: Trying to get random State from cstates()

Thank you. That worked for me. Thanks again.