std::sample

 

C++

Language

Standard library headers

Concepts

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Algorithms library

Iterators library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Filesystem library (C++17)

Technical Specifications

 

Algorithm library

Execution policies (C++17)
is_execution_policy	sequentialparpar_vec	sequential_execution_policyparallel_execution_policyparallel_vector_execution_policy
Non-modifying sequence operations
all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) for_each for_each_n (C++17)	countcount_if mismatch equal lexicographical_compare	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of	adjacent_find search search_n
Modifying sequence operations
copycopy_if (C++11) copy_n (C++11) copy_backward move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) transform	fill fill_n generate generate_n swap iter_swap swap_ranges sample (C++17)	removeremove_if replacereplace_if reverse rotate unique random_shuffle (until C++17)	remove_copyremove_copy_if replace_copyreplace_copy_if reverse_copy rotate_copy unique_copy shuffle (C++11)
Operations on uninitialized storage
uninitialized_copy	uninitialized_copy_n	uninitialized_fill	uninitialized_fill_n
Partitioning operations
is_partitioned (C++11) partition_point (C++11)	partition partition_copy (C++11)	stable_partition
Sorting operations
is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11)	sort stable_sort	partial_sort partial_sort_copy	nth_element
Binary search operations
lower_bound	upper_bound	binary_search	equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
merge inplace_merge	set_difference set_intersection	set_symmetric_difference set_union	includes
Heap operations
is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11)	make_heap sort_heap	push_heap pop_heap
Minimum/maximum operations
max max_element	min min_element	minmax (C++11) minmax_element (C++11)	clamp (C++17)
Permutations
is_permutation (C++11)	next_permutation	prev_permutation
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) inner_product adjacent_difference	accumulate reduce (C++17) transform_reduce (C++17)	partial_sum inclusive_scan (C++17) exclusive_scan (C++17)	transform_inclusive_scan (C++17) transform_exclusive_scan (C++17)
C library
qsort	bsearch

 

Defined in header <algorithm>
template< class PopulationIterator, class SampleIterator,           class Distance, class UniformRandomNumberGenerator > SampleIterator sample( PopulationIterator first, PopulationIterator last,                        SampleIterator out, Distance n,                        UniformRandomNumberGenerator&& g);		(since C++17)

Selects n elements from the sequence [first; last) such that each possible sample has equal probability of appearance, and writes those selected elements into the output iterator out. Random numbers are generated using the random number generator g.

If n is greater than the number of elements in the sequence, selects last-first elements.

The algorithm is stable only if PopulationIterator meets the requirements of ForwardIterator

Parameters

first, last	-	pair of iterators forming the range from which to make the sampling (the population)
out	-	the output iterator where the samples are written. Must not be in the [first;last) range
n	-	number of samples to make
g	-	the random number generator used as the source of randomness
- PopulationIterator must meet the requirements of InputIterator.
- SampleIterator must meet the requirements of OutputIterator.
- SampleIterator must also meet the requirements of RandomAccessIterator if PopulationIterator doesn't meet ForwardIterator
- PopulationIterator's value type must be writeable to out
- Distance must be an integer type
- UniformRandomNumberGenerator must meet the requirements of UniformRandomNumberGenerator and its return type must be convertible to Distance

Return value

Returns a copy of out after the last sample that was output, that is, end of the sample range.

Complexity

Linear in std::distance(first,last)

Notes

This function may implement selection sampling or reservoir sampling.

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <random>
#include <string>
#include <iterator>
#include <algorithm>
 
int main()
{
    std::string in = "abcdefgh", out;
    std::sample(in.begin(), in.end(), std::back_inserter(out),
                5, std::mt19937{std::random_device{}()});
    std::cout << "five random letters out of " << in << " : " << out << '\n';
}

Possible output:

five random letters out of abcdefgh : cdefg

See also

random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11)

randomly re-orders elements in a range (function template)