Somehow this just seemed relevant! ;-)

Random Quick Pick tinkerings

While visiting a local newsagent recently, I noticed that the Australian national lottery has a system that generates numbers randomly. For some reason I thought this was kind of interesting as a concept and wondered how it would be done.

The result of playing around with some C# code for a little while is as follows. Feel free to do whatever you like with it and if it wins you a bucket full of cash, let me know and have fun coding!

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace QuickPluck
{
  class Program
  {
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
          DisplayBanner();
          int required = RequestedGames();
          int gameNumMax = GameNumbers();
          int numSeries = SeriesSequence();

          for (int z = 0; z < style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">//time needs to be above 1000 cycles or dupes occur!
              int c = 10000;
              int[] numb = new int[c];             
              DateTime dt = new DateTime();
              dt = DateTime.Now;
              Random rnd = new Random(dt.Millisecond);
              for (int i = 0; i < style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);">//the magic touch!                 
                  numb[i] = rnd.Next(1, gameNumMax);
              }
              Array.Sort(numb);
              int k = 0;
              int j = 0;
              int[] length = new int[50];
              int[] result = new int[50];
              for (int i = 0; i < style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">if (numb[i] == numb[i + 1])
                  {
                      result[k] = numb[i];
                      length[k] = j += 1;
                  }
                  else
                  {
                      k += 1;
                      j = 0;
                  }
              }
              Array.Sort(length, result);
              switch (numSeries)
              {
                  case 1:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49]);
                      break;
                  case 2:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48]);
                      break;
                  case 3:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47]);
                      break;
                  case 4:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47] + " " + result[46]);
                      break;
                  case 5:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47] + " " + result[46] + " " + result[45]);
                      break;
                  case 6:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47] + " " + result[46] + " " + result[45] + " " + result[44]);
                      break;
                  case 7:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47] + " " + result[46] + " " + result[45] + " " + result[44]+ " " + result[43]);
                      break;
                  case 8:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47] + " " + result[46] + " " + result[45] + " " + result[44]+ " " + result[43]+ " " + result[42]);
                      break;
                  case 9:
                      Console.WriteLine(result[49] + " " + result[48] + " " + result[47] + " " + result[46] + " " + result[45] + " " + result[44] + " " + result[43] + " " + result[42] + " " + result[41]);
                      break;
                  default:
                      Console.WriteLine("Invalid selection. Please select numbers from 1 to 9!");
                      break;
              }             
          }
          ExitNow();
      }
      private static void DisplayBanner()
      {
          Console.WriteLine("Welcome to QuickPluck personal lottery number generator.");
          Console.WriteLine("\n");
          Console.WriteLine("The idea is simple.");
          Console.WriteLine("1 - Enter the number of games to play as required.");
          Console.WriteLine("2 - Enter the maximum numbers allowed in the game.");
          Console.WriteLine("3 - Enter the numbers per line in each game (1-9) - presto!");
          Console.WriteLine("\n");
      }
      private static int GameNumbers()
      {
          int myGames = 0;
          Console.WriteLine("How many possible numbers? eg; 45 number game");
          try
          {
              myGames = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
          }
          catch (FormatException)
          {
              UserFud();
              myGames = 0;
          }
          int gameNumMax = myGames;//required number system. ie; 46 nums
          return gameNumMax;
      }
      private static int RequestedGames()
      {
          int myValue = 0;
          Console.WriteLine("How many games required? eg; 1 to 40");
          try
          {
              myValue = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
          }
          catch (FormatException)
          {
              UserFud();
              myValue = 0;
          }
          int required = myValue;//number of results required?         
          return required;
      }
      private static int SeriesSequence()
      {         
          int numSeries = 0;
          Console.WriteLine("How many numbers per game? eg; (5) numbers, (6) numbers or super 7's? (7)");
          try
          {
              string seriesNum = Console.ReadLine();
              numSeries = int.Parse(seriesNum);
          }
          catch (FormatException)
          {
              UserFud();
              numSeries = 0;
          }
          return numSeries;
      }
      private static void UserFud()
      {
          Console.WriteLine("\n");
          Console.WriteLine("must be numeric!");
          Console.WriteLine("\n");
      }
      private static void ExitNow()
      {
          Console.WriteLine("\n");
          Console.WriteLine("Thanks for Plucking! Any key exits.");
          Console.WriteLine("\n");
          string exiting = Console.ReadKey().ToString();
          if (exiting.Length > 0)
          {
              Environment.Exit(0);
          }
      }
  }
}