Lotery wanna be - Xtreme Visual Basic Talk

06-19-2002, 10:04 AM

koqui

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Lotery wanna be

Hiya,
I need some help creating the logic for a lotery program. The professor assigned our group to create a "loto program" or better known as Lotery. The numbers are from 1 to 42. Which means I have 42 diffrent combinations right?(six options)(ej.12,32,45,65,67,43) The program has to create all the combinations available in a text file, but show a radom number from the combinations it created. please help!

I belive I have to multiply 42 * 42 = 1764 (combinations ej. 1,1,1,1,1,1 or 1,1,1,1,1,2) then have 1764 * 42

Im stuck....

THNX
koqui

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06-19-2002, 10:07 AM

ChiefRedBull

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One way of generating the various possibilities is via nested loops -

Code:

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer

    For i = 1 To 3
        For j = 1 To 3
            For k = 1 To 3
                Text1.Text = Text1.Text & vbCrLf & i & "," & j & "," & k
            Next k
        Next j
    Next i
End Sub

However, I can imagine this being mighty slow if you've got 42 variables...

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06-19-2002, 10:15 AM

ChiefRedBull

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In fact, I just tried it, and not only did it crash my machine, but the file it produced was over 18MB. Heh.. which also crashed my machine...

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06-19-2002, 10:16 AM

Apoc

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If you have 6 options and 42 variables, then i'm pretty sure that the formula for figuring out how many combinations there are is 42!/6! (42 factorial divided by 6 factorial). Am I correct on this? The nested loop would look like this:

Code:

Dim a As Integer
Dim b As Integer
Dim c As Integer
Dim d As Integer
Dim e As Integer
Dim f As Integer

For a = 1 to 42
    For b = 1 to 42
        For c = 1 to 42
            For d = 1 to 42
                For e = 1 to 42
                    For f = 1 to 42
                        List1.AddItem a & "." & b & "." & c & "." & d & "." & e & "." & f
                    Next f
                Next e
            Next d
        Next c
    Next b
Next a

This seems really inefficient though...I'm sure there is a better way, but at the moment, I can't think of a one.

---- UPDATE ----

I just remembered, it's 42!/(42-6)!, not 42!/6!

Therefore, there are.......................3776965920 combinations (if order DOES count), if order does not count, then you have to account for repeat combinations.... the formula for THAT is 42!/(6!(42-6)!), which is 5245786

Last edited by Apoc; 06-19-2002 at 10:32 AM.

06-19-2002, 10:20 AM

ChiefRedBull

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Since there are 5,489,031,744 possible results, that many nested loops will nuke your system as I mentioned above. Placing DoEvents statements at the end of each loop saves the nuking, but it takes an _awful_ long time to work them all out.

Edit: I was just doing 42^6. Is that not right? It's been a while since I've done any maths... but no, in the lottery, order does not count - so you're probably right there.

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06-19-2002, 10:36 AM

BillSoo

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We have a lottery in Canada called 6/49 which is 6 numbers out of 49. It generates about 14 million possibilities so 5 million for 6/42 sounds about right.

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06-19-2002, 12:24 PM

BillSoo

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Here is some code which should generate every possible combination in which order is not important and no number repeats.

Code:

Option Explicit

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim n&, s$
Dim d1%, d2%, d3%, d4%, d5%, d6%
n = 0
For d1 = 1 To 37
    For d2 = d1 + 1 To 38
        For d3 = d2 + 1 To 39
            For d4 = d3 + 1 To 40
                For d5 = d4 + 1 To 41
                    For d6 = d5 + 1 To 42
                        s = CStr(d1) & CStr(d2) & CStr(d3) & CStr(d4) & CStr(d5) & CStr(d6)
                        n = n + 1
                    Next d6
                Next d5
            Next d4
        Next d3
    Next d2
Next d1
Debug.Print n
End Sub

When I run it, I get a total of 5,245,786 values, so APOC is correct. Note that although I assign the number to s, I don't actually save it anywhere...you'll have to add the code for that yourself.

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