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0

How to use math.random w/ in pairs?

ItsMeKlc 235
4 years ago

I'm trying to choose a random song and it's title at the same time, but it isn't working... What am I doing wrong?

    local songs = {Friday = "268763467",
["The Song of the Cebu"] = "142570249",
Problem = "261244793",
Bills = "165508381"
}

local song = songs[math.random(1,#in pairs(songs))
music.SoundId =("http://www.roblox.com/asset/?id="..song)
music:Play()

0
local song = songs[math.random(1,#songs)] TheDeadlyPanther 2437 — 4y

0

The pairs function returns all the keys and values of the argument table, math.random returns a random integer. For this reason, you can't directly index a value at a non-integer key with a value generated from math.random. Here's a potential workaround:

function obtainRandomKeyValuePair(tab)
local randIndex = math.random(1, #tab);
local curIndex = 1;

for k, v in pairs(songs) do
if curIndex >= randIndex then
return k, v;
end

curIndex = curIndex + 1;
end
end


You would then call the function with:

local key, val = obtainRandomKeyValuePair(songs);


EDIT: Apparently the length operator doesn't work on tables with non-numeric indices. That's really poor design. At any rate, I would switch to a 2D table. Here's an example:

local songs = {
titles = {
"Friday",
"The Song of the Cebu",
"Problem",
"Bills"
},
ids = {
"268763467",
"142570249",
"261244793",
"165508381"
}
};

local randIndex = math.random(1, #songs.titles);
local title = songs.titles[randIndex];
local id = songs.ids[randIndex];

0
output says " Players.Player.PlayerGui.GUI.Everything.Popups.Settings.LocalScript:17: bad argument #2 to 'random' (interval is empty)" :l ItsMeKlc 235 — 4y
0
@legokendall Sorry, Lua is stupid. See my edit. DreadPirateRobux 655 — 4y
0
#tab will not count all keys -- just the ones 1, 2, 3, ... up to some number. It will be 0 on the given table. You have to count them yourself (with two for loops) BlueTaslem 17864 — 4y