Mark Six master on Linux/Mac

Mark Six is a lottery in Hong Kong. You can select 6 numbers from a pool of 49 numbers on the lottery ticket. There are numerous single-line commands that can be used to generate 6 numbers randomly from 1 to 49.

python 2

python -c 'import random; print [ random.randint(1,49) for _ in xrange(6)]'

awk

awk -v min=1 -v max=49 'BEGIN{ srand(); for (i = 0; i < 6; i++)  print int(min+rand()*(max-min+1))}'

bash

for i in {1..6}; do echo $(( ( RANDOM % 49 ) + 1)); done

jot on Mac macOS 10.13 High Sierra no longer provides jot

jot -r -s ' ' 6 1 49 | tr ' ' '\n'

However, you will soon find repeated numbers are generated from the above solutions. The trick to have non-repeated generated numbers is using random sort from an array with 49 numbers,

python 2

python -c 'import random; a = range(1, 49); random.shuffle(a); print a[:6:]'

jot on Mac macOS 10.13 High Sierra no longer provides jot

jot 49 1 49 | gsort --random-sort | head -n 6

Using AI to write python script

Using AI to generate Python scripts is extremely straightforward. Let’s write a prompt and compare it with what we wrote in 2017. The prompt is: Write a Python script that pick six random unique numbers from 1 to 49, inclusive. Write it simple and testable.

import random

def get_random_numbers():
    return random.sample(range(1, 50), 6)

print(get_random_numbers())

The result is great! We can add AI to unit test as well.

import unittest
from your_script import get_random_numbers

class TestGetRandomNumbers(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_length(self):
        self.assertEqual(len(get_random_numbers()), 6)

    def test_values(self):
        numbers = get_random_numbers()
        self.assertTrue(all(1 <= x <= 49 for x in numbers))

    def test_uniqueness(self):
        numbers = get_random_numbers()
        self.assertTrue(len(set(numbers)) == len(numbers))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

The unit test is better than many developers!