Question

I want to be able to create a program that will take a list of names from a .txt file (Doesnt have to be a txt, maybe excell, whatever is easiest) and generate those names into groups or “teams”.

I have 30 “users” that have to be sorted into “Teams”. I want to be able to do this fairly, so I want to random :P.

I haven’t yet decided the amount of persons per team, but I will soon.

3 Teams of 10
5 teams of 6

Thanks for the responce.

Answer 1

Since this isn’t homework and it looked like a fun little project… (This is one huge spoiler)

Console app built for .Net 4.0 with VS 2010 Beta 2

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        /* Assuming one team per line */
        Team[] teams = File.ReadAllLines("teams.txt")
                            .Select(t => new Team(t))
                            .ToArray();

        /* Guid.NewGuid() is creates a sufficiently random order */
        /* Assuming one player per line */
        string[] players = File.ReadAllLines("players.txt")
                                .OrderBy(s => Guid.NewGuid())
                                .ToArray();

        /* 
         * No use randomizing anymore...
         * Just assign (PlayerCount / TeamCount) players to each team 
         */
        for (int i = 0; i < teams.Length; i++)
        {
            var p = players.Skip(i * players.Length / teams.Length)
                            .Take(players.Length / teams.Length);

            teams[i % teams.Length].Players.AddRange(p);
        }

        foreach (Team t in teams)
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(t);
        }
    }
}

class Team
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public List<string> Players { get; set; }

    public Team(string name)
    {
        Name = name;
        Players = new List<string>();
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        /* Team name plus the players sorted alphabetically */
        /*//.Net 4.0
        return string.Format("{0}  \n{1}",
            Name,
            string.Join("  \n",
                        Players.Select(p => string.Concat("\t", p))
                               .OrderBy(s => s)));
        */

        //.Net 3.5 & 4.0
        return string.Format("{0}  \n{1}",
            Name,
            string.Join("  \n",
                        Players.Select(p => string.Concat("\t", p))
                               .OrderBy(s => s).ToArray()));
    }
}

Example output:

Colts  
    Chuck  
    Cory  
    Jim  
    Sam  
    Ulysses
Saints  
    Al  
    Brett  
    Hank  
    Ned  
    Quinn
Vikings  
    Dave  
    Don  
    Ernie  
    Frank  
    Gus
Jets  
    Bob  
    Eric  
    Isaac  
    Walt  
    Yancy
Chargers  
    Abe  
    Mark  
    Oscar  
    Xavier  
    Zach
Cardinals  
    Fred  
    Kyle  
    Pete  
    Ralph  
    Tom