RANDOM Function

joftech · Post by **joftech** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:42 am

Hi Support,

Could you please tell me the context for using the RANDOM function.

I tried Gift.VoucherNumber = RANDOM as a rule but I keep on getting error messages.

I also tried a rule Gift.C= RANDOM(VoucherNumber)

This gives me the following error in testing mode
Operation error. com.bas.shared.ruleparser.ParseException Unsupported function RANDOM

Thanks

Alan

aware_support · Post by **aware_support** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:36 am

What sort of error messages are you getting when using Gift.VoucherNumber=RANDOM

(this is the correct usage)

joftech · Post by **joftech** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:54 am

The error message i get is

rule ' ' uses business object 'RANDOM' which has not been found.

Alan

aware_support · Post by **aware_support** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:07 am

Try using Gift.VoucherNumber=RANDOM()

The documentation for this function is wrong - there should be brackets after the function.

joftech · Post by **joftech** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:19 am

Hi Support,

That got rid of the error message. When I use it however I get only a value of zero.

What the client has asked for is that the gift voucher numbers get generated randomly ( dont ask why as I think they dont know either)

Alan

aware_support · Post by **aware_support** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:33 am

What is the format of the Gift.VoucherNumber attribute?

The default format (#) corresponds to integer - this could be the reason why you always getting zero, since RANDOM returns a double value in the range 0 - 1. For example, 0.124342. So the result is then rounded to the nearest integer which is zero.

So you need to either set the format of the attribute to be double (for example, #.##) or multiply the result by some factor.

joftech · Post by **joftech** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:39 am

Hi Support,

You were right. One i changed the formate to #.00000 etc it worked.

Thank You

Alan

bazar2009 · Post by **bazar2009** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 3:01 pm

I noticed that the documentation is still wrong for the RANDOM function. I had to search the forum because I ran into the same exact problems as joftech.

It would be helpful if the text in the rule editor would display that the brackets () are required for the function to work (or have them automatically display when the RANDOM function is selected) and that the attribute should be a double.