Shuffle array in C

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;
}

The following code ensures that the array will be shuffled based on a random seed taken from the usec time. Also this implements the Fisher–Yates shuffle properly. I've tested the output of this function and it looks good (even expectation of any array element being the first element after shuffle. Also even expectation for being the last).

void shuffle(int *array, size_t n) {    
    struct timeval tv;
    gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
    int usec = tv.tv_usec;
    srand48(usec);


    if (n > 1) {
        size_t i;
        for (i = n - 1; i > 0; i--) {
            size_t j = (unsigned int) (drand48()*(i+1));
            int t = array[j];
            array[j] = array[i];
            array[i] = t;
        }
    }
}

There isn't a function in the C standard to randomize an array.

  • Look at Knuth - he has algorithms for the job.
  • Or look at Bentley - Programming Pearls or More Programming Pearls.
  • Or look in almost any algorithms book.

Ensuring a fair shuffle (where every permutation of the original order is equally likely) is simple, but not trivial.