Knuth's algorithm S
Knuth's algorithm S is a draft programming task. It is not yet considered ready to be promoted as a complete task, for reasons that should be found in its talk page.
This is a method of randomly sampling n items from a set of M items, with equal probability; where M >= n and M, the number of items is unknown until the end. This means that the equal probability sampling should be maintained for all successive items > n as they become available (although the content of successive samples can change).
- The algorithm
- Select the first n items as the sample as they become available;
- For the i-th item where i > n, have a random chance of n/i of keeping it. If failing this chance, the sample remains the same. If not, have it randomly (1/n) replace one of the previously selected n items of the sample.
- Repeat #2 for any subsequent items.
- The Task
- Create a function
s_of_n_creator
that given the maximum sample size, returns a functions_of_n
that takes one parameter,item
. - Function
s_of_n
when called with successive items returns an equi-weighted random sample of up to n of its items so far, each time it is called, calculated using Knuths Algorithm S. - Test your functions by printing and showing the frequency of occurrences of the selected digits from 100,000 repetitions of:
- Use the s_of_n_creator with n == 3 to generate an s_of_n.
- call s_of_n with each of the digits 0 to 9 in order, keeping the returned three digits of its random sampling from its last call with argument item=9.
Note: A class taking n and generating a callable instance/function might also be used.
Python
<lang python>from random import random, randrange
def s_of_n_creator(n):
sample, i = [], 0 def s_of_n(item): nonlocal n, i, sample
i += 1 if i <= n: # Keep first n items sample.append(item) elif random() < (n / i): # Keep item del sample[randrange(n)] sample.append(item) return sample return s_of_n
if __name__ == '__main__':
bin = [0]* 10 items = range(10) print("Single run samples for n = 3:") s_of_n = s_of_n_creator(3) for item in items: sample = s_of_n(item) print(" Item: %i -> sample: %s" % (item, sample)) # for trial in range(100000): s_of_n = s_of_n_creator(3) for item in items: sample = s_of_n(item) for s in sample: bin[s] += 1 print("\nTest item frequencies for 100000 runs:\n ", '\n '.join("%i:%i" % x for x in enumerate(bin)))</lang>
- Sample output
Single run samples for n = 3: Item: 0 -> sample: [0] Item: 1 -> sample: [0, 1] Item: 2 -> sample: [0, 1, 2] Item: 3 -> sample: [0, 1, 3] Item: 4 -> sample: [0, 1, 3] Item: 5 -> sample: [0, 1, 3] Item: 6 -> sample: [0, 1, 3] Item: 7 -> sample: [0, 3, 7] Item: 8 -> sample: [0, 3, 7] Item: 9 -> sample: [0, 3, 7] Test item frequencies for 100000 runs: 0:29983 1:30240 2:29779 3:29921 4:30224 5:29967 6:30036 7:30050 8:29758 9:30042