Brian Dunning's FileMaker Custom Functions

RandomWeightedRank ( total )

Returns a random integer between 1 and total such that the probability of each number is proportional to itself.

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Jeremy Bante   Jeremy Bante

https://github.com/jbante/

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  Sample input:
List (
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 );
RandomWeightedRank ( 10 )
)
  Sample output:
6
9
7
10
10
9
3
6
7
5

  Function definition: (Copy & paste into FileMaker's Edit Custom Function window)

Returns a random integer between 1 and total such that the probability of each number is proportional to itself. For example, 2 is twice as likely as 1, and 3 is 3 times as likely as 1. This may be useful for ordinally weighted lotteries, where applicants have a number of lottery tickets determined by some ranking. For example, you might want to randomly award a scholarship, but you might also want individuals with greater financial need to be more likely to receive the scholarship.

 

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