On 23/10/26 at 17:36, Greg Wooledge wrote:
I've added the "if [ -z "${assigned[rand]}" ]; then" statement because $rand had many occurrences of the same value so I tried with the "assigned[$rand]" array to avoid that, looping in the circumstance "$rand" had a value already assigned.
It's*fine* if rand gets the same value more than once in this loop. It just means that particular slot in the playlist will be swapped more than once. It doesn't mean a song will be repeated.
In my understanding I supposed that some clip was left in its original position (skipped) but now I realize that it is not possible because "$i" changes for each iteration.
I suspect you don't understand what the original code is doing. I added the comments for a reason -- they tell you what each section does. I didn't explain every line, because that's not how code comments should be used.
I had my coding in my mind. That it encompassed an unique $rand value necessary as array index to shuffle the playlist[], as I did in my previous coding. In other words I did a sort of confusion mixing my previously coding concepts and apply them to your code.
If you need help understanding the original code (e.g. an explanation of every single line, one by one), feel free to ask. Are you stuck on the word "shuffle"? It's normally used with a deck of playing cards. If you have a deck of cards, and you shuffle it, then the same cards are still in the deck, but they're in a different, random, order. You don't magically get two of the same card, unless your deck started out with duplicates.
No, I'm OK with the "shuffle" meaning.
That's what this loop is doing. It takes your array of filenames and shuffles it. The filenames are randomly re-ordered.
I apologize for the noise, but since I was unsure, I decided to write you an email, I'll restore the code to its original state.
Kind regards, -- Franco Martelli
