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From: Steve Wampler <[e-mail]>
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Subject: Re: Desperately in need of help
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 09:02:22 -0700
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On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 23:10:48 -0800, Afgncaap5 wrote:
...
> Anyway, I'm working towards creating a very simple, basic program that
> will create data tables.  Each cell of the table is named after a
> letter of the alphabet, and each cell contains the number of times
> that this letter has been encountered in the input.  After this stage,
> a random number generator is used to find a number between 0 and 1,
> and each of the numbers in the cells are to be divided by the sum
> total of all of the cells.  The program will then select a letter of
> the alphabet based on all of this.
>
> Now, my prof keeps telling me that there's an error in the code but is
> absolutely refusing to tell me where the error is, what the error is
> doing, and how I can go about fixing it.  Can someone help me?
> Included is a copy of the material that I'm working with.

Have you tried compiling the code yet?  There's definitely
a syntax error - there is no keyword &alphabet.  I suspect
you mean &lcase again.  This is a bit worrisome, as it means
you haven't tried running the program yourself yet...

There are also some logic flaws, from what I understand of
the problem.  For example:

As it's written now, the entire program can be rewritten as:

   procedure main()
       write("z")
   end

which probably isn't what you want!   (My guess is that this
is a work in progress, where you'll be adding more to the
program as you get this part running.)

Finally, the statement:

    &random := 0

probably isn't doing what you want.  That does not
randomize a timer.  In fact, 0 is the initial value
of &random, so the above line isn't really doing anything.

If you want a different sequence of random numbers generated
each time you run the program, you'll have to assign a
unique (different) seed to &random each time you run the
program.




> procedure main()
>     &random :=0 #randomizes the timer
>     primary := table(0)  #Creates a table with all values equal to zero
>
>     test := string(&lcase)  # Creates a string based on all lower-case
> letters
>
>     every primary[!test] +:=1  #Goes through every letter in the alphabet
> and increments it by one
>     sum := 0  # creates a value of sum equal to zero
>     every x := !&lcase do
>         sum +:= primary[x]
>
>     cumcounts := 0
>     cumprob := table(0.0000)
>     every x:=!&lcase do{
>         cumcounts +:= primary[x]
>         cumprob[x]:=(cumcounts*1.0000)/(sum    *1.0000)
>     }
>
>
>     randnum := ?0
>     every x := !&alphabet do {
>         if randnum <= primary[x] then {
>             letter := x
>         }
>     }
>
>     write(x)
>
> end