Question

I’m looking for a function in ANSI C that would randomize an array just like PHP’s shuffle() does. Is there such a function or do I have to write it on my own? And if I have to write it on my own, what’s the best/most performant way to do it?

My ideas so far:

• Iterate through the array for, say, 100 times and exchange a random index with another random index
• Create a new array and fill it with random indices from the first one checking each time if the index is already taken (performance = 0 complexity = serious)

Answer 1

Pasted from Asmodiel‘s link to Ben Pfaff’s Writings, for persistence:

#include <stdlib.h>

/* Arrange the N elements of ARRAY in random order.
   Only effective if N is much smaller than RAND_MAX;
   if this may not be the case, use a better random
   number generator. */
void shuffle(int *array, size_t n)
{
    if (n > 1) 
    {
        size_t i;
        for (i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) 
        {
          size_t j = i + rand() / (RAND_MAX / (n - i) + 1);
          int t = array[j];
          array[j] = array[i];
          array[i] = t;
        }
    }
}

EDIT: And here’s a generic version that works for any type (int, struct, …) through memcpy. With an example program to run, it requires VLAs, not every compiler supports this so you might want to change that to malloc (which will perform badly) or a static buffer large enough to accommodate any type you throw at it:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>

/* compile and run with
 * cc shuffle.c -o shuffle && ./shuffle */

#define NELEMS(x)  (sizeof(x) / sizeof(x[0]))

/* arrange the N elements of ARRAY in random order.
 * Only effective if N is much smaller than RAND_MAX;
 * if this may not be the case, use a better random
 * number generator. */
static void shuffle(void *array, size_t n, size_t size) {
    char tmp[size];
    char *arr = array;
    size_t stride = size * sizeof(char);

    if (n > 1) {
        size_t i;
        for (i = 0; i < n - 1; ++i) {
            size_t rnd = (size_t) rand();
            size_t j = i + rnd / (RAND_MAX / (n - i) + 1);

            memcpy(tmp, arr + j * stride, size);
            memcpy(arr + j * stride, arr + i * stride, size);
            memcpy(arr + i * stride, tmp, size);
        }
    }
}

#define print_type(count, stmt) \
    do { \
    printf("["); \
    for (size_t i = 0; i < (count); ++i) { \
        stmt; \
    } \
    printf("]\n"); \
    } while (0)

struct cmplex {
    int foo;
    double bar;
};

int main() {
    srand(time(NULL));

    int intarr[] = { 1, -5, 7, 3, 20, 2 };

    print_type(NELEMS(intarr), printf("%d,", intarr[i]));
    shuffle(intarr, NELEMS(intarr), sizeof(intarr[0]));
    print_type(NELEMS(intarr), printf("%d,", intarr[i]));

    struct cmplex cmparr[] = {
        { 1, 3.14 },
        { 5, 7.12 },
        { 9, 8.94 },
        { 20, 1.84 }
    };

    print_type(NELEMS(intarr), printf("{%d %f},", cmparr[i].foo, cmparr[i].bar));
    shuffle(cmparr, NELEMS(cmparr), sizeof(cmparr[0]));
    print_type(NELEMS(intarr), printf("{%d %f},", cmparr[i].foo, cmparr[i].bar));

    return 0;
}