[DGD] File access question

[Felix A. Croes]

"Kurt Nordstrom" <kurt at blar.net> wrote:

> I've got a situation that I'm trying to figure out the best way to
> approach.  I was wondering if maybe any of you could give your thoughts on
> how you might tackle it.
>
> I'm wanting to code a simulated card game, with maybe 1000 unique cards
> (they'll have various words on them), but only 200 of which will be used
> in a given game.  So, essentially it will need to read a file of 1000
> entries, pick out 200 by random (which it will store in memory), and then
> close the file.

It sounds like it would be easiest to have a file format with one line
for each card, read the whole file in one go, explode the string by
newline, and then work on the resulting array:

    file = read_file("/path/to/cardsfile");
    cards = explode(file, "\n");

After that, pick 200 random ones using the method suggested by Mikael
Lind.  I think that the tick cost would not be excessive.  Sometimes,
the simplest solution is best.

Another separator could be used if multiple lines per card are desired.

Regards,
Dworkin