Forum Discussion

domladden's avatar
domladden
Ace
9 years ago

Random number generator

Hi, FreeMarker doesn't have a random number generator for some reason so has anyone created one before?   I want to display random posts depending on topic so I can create a more dynamic page.   ...
  • ChristineC's avatar
    ChristineC
    9 years ago

    The utils object has some utilities for generating random numbers. Try utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(ceiling)

domladden's avatar
domladden
Ace
Hi Christine, is there any way for this to be used more than once at once, so to speak?

for instance :

Random 1 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(25)}
Random 2 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(25)}
Random 3 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(25)}

Will return the same number for all 3 variables.

The ceiling is the number of posts I have, and I want 3 random posts.

I tried

Random1 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(TotalPosts)}
Random2 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(TotalPosts -1)}
Random3 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(TotalPosts -2)}

And that works in that random numbers are generated but there are a few pitfalls in that approach like causing duplicates.

I will obviously have to account for duplicates etc. anyway but still, if I can keep the approach as clean as possible I would prefer that.

Thanks for your help with the original request though that has helped a lot.
ChristineC's avatar
ChristineC
Khoros Alumni (Retired)
9 years ago

Got some help from DougS. It looks like the freemarker library is doing that caching. As a workaround, you can try something like this

Random 1 = ${utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(25)}
Random 2 = ${(utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(26) - 1)?abs}
Random 3 = ${(utils.numbers.randomIntWithCeiling(27) - 2)?abs}

 

  • ChristineC's avatar
    ChristineC
    Khoros Alumni (Retired)
    9 years ago

    Edited my previous reply to add ?abs and avoid getting negative number

     

    We did some further digging and found a bug after all.  We'll try to get this fix in the next release, but in the meantime you can try that workaround