Working with tables

egyptcapri

Hello all, great resource here and it has helped immensely while i have been building my quiz app.

My question is this, if i have a master list say with 100 questions and answers and i would like to randomly copy ten rows into a new table so each time the user plays they get 10 that with the random shuffle should mean not much repeats unless they play the same level over and over?

tatiang

Here's the algorithm I would use:

1. Make a master table with your 100 questions and answers
2. Create a table with 10 rows each with a value from 1 to 10
3. Choose a random number from 1 to 91 to serve as the starting row number
4. Choose a random number from 1 to tableRowCount(OneToTenTable)
5. Add Table Row to pullTable if first row is not empty
6. Change Table Value of last row of pullTable, column 1 to tableCellValue(masterTable,startingRowNumber+randomNumber,1)
7. Change TableValue of last row of pullTable, column 2 to
8. tableCellValue(masterTable,startingRowNumber+randomNumber,2)
9. Delete row at randomNumber position from OneToTenTable
10. Repeat steps 4-8 until OneToTenTable has no rows left

egyptcapri

not sure i understand step 5

think i get most of this actually trying to incorporate it at the moment.

tatiang

Step 5 is the least intuitive but the reason for it is that if you add a row to an empty table then you end up with a table that looks like this:

[blank]
question1 answer1
question2 answer2
...

So instead if the first row is empty, just change the value of the cells (step 6). Once you've added data to the first row, you'll always thereafter want to add a row first so that there's somewhere to add new data.

egyptcapri

ok cool for that explanation.

working on my code so will let you know how it works out.

egyptcapri

ok sorry but after starting to work on this i totally blanked and now am lost as to how to implement this.

tatiang

Sorry to hear that! Is there a question you have about a particular step?

egyptcapri

how do i go about doing step 5 im sorry ive been looking at your post and as im learning the software and also programming im drawing a blank. Thanks again

tatiang

Add Table Row to pullTable if first row is not empty

When text expression tableCellValue(tableName,1,1) is not [blank]
Add row to end of table
Change Table Value [row: tableRowCount(tableName)]

The first time through, it will just change the value of the first row but thereafter, it will add a row and then change the value within that row.