Thread: Picking Random Element from Array

Not too sure if this is the right place to post this, so if it isn't, I apologize. Still figuring out my way around here.

Anyways, what is the best way to grab a random element from an array? Truly needs to be as close to random as possible.

Use the Random class's method to choose an index value between 0 and the length of the array-1

Would this be the proper way to use this utility?

public void randomGen(String[] x) {
        Random rangen = new Random();
        int rand = rangen.nextInt(x.length-1);
 
    }

Looks like it might work. Write a loop and print out the returned value a few times to see what you get.
No need to create a new Random object everytime you want a number. Make rangen a class variable.
Then the method has one statement so you might as well use rangen inline.

public void randomGen(String[] x) {
        int rand = rangen.nextInt(x.length-2);
        JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Randomly chosen word is: " + x[rand]);
    }

For anyone interested in this code for later, this definitely works. I have some strange assignment to my array, so I have to sub 2 instead of one, otherwise I'll occasionally get a "null" return due to the last element being, well, null =P. JOptionPane's message dialog can be subbed for a system.out.println, but I find the dialogs much nicer to look at in the long run. Thanks again, Norm, for the guidance!

EDIT: Good idea on the class variable, btw. Originally wrote it contained to see if it would work properly. Is now resting up above with all my others.