Sort, with your hands tied behind your back

Question

The problem is very simple: write a program that accepts a single unsigned integer from the command line, and prints out that many random numbers on the standard output, in ascending order.

For example:

input:

5

output ^{(you can use any type of whitespace)}:

557
9424
19212
32293
39135

However, you are not allowed to define any variables. Any at all.

Score is given by code length, shortest wins, and by up-votes if equal.

_{The random numbers can be anything generated by a reasonable pseudo-random generator with a uniform distribution: for example, integers at least 8 bits long (no cheap "0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 " one bit solutions, please), or real numbers (e.g. float) between 0 and 1. In dynamically typed languages, the fist assignment counts as definition in our context, so no cheap Matlab solutions, please :)}

Answer 1

J, 8 characters

If we can take the number of numbers to be generated at the end of the program like the Q solution, then:

/:~256?~

Example:

   /:~256?~8
18 21 91 201 212 226 246 253

If not, then taking input from the keyboard requires another 8 characters:

/:~256?~".1!:1[1

Answer 2

Q, 10

{asc x?1f}

.

q){asc x?1f}5
`s#0.08724017 0.1024432 0.2310108 0.2560658 0.8671096

Answer 3

Perl - 28 26 20 chars

say sort map rand.$/,1..<>

I realized the sorting isn't unnecessary, we only need random numbers in ascending order. rand will return a real in [0,1), so just add our iteration counter to each rand result.

say$_+rand for 1..<>

or

map{say$_+rand}1..<>

Answer 4

Ruby, 42 34

puts (1..gets.to_i).map{rand}.sort

This could probably be made smaller, but don't blame me - I don't even know Ruby. Also, that whitespace after puts is significant. Silly language ;)

Answer 5

Bash, 45 characters

eval `yes 'echo $RANDOM;'|head -n$1`|sort -n

Put in a file and run sh file.sh 25 or replace $1 by any number

Answer 6

GolfScript, 14 chars

~{9.?rand}*]$`

Generating random numbers in GolfScript takes quite many characters, especially if you want to pick them from a reasonably large range. Sorting the list takes only one char ($), though, and needs no variables.

Same code de-golfed and with comments added:

~            # eval input string, turning it into a number
{            # define a code block:
  9.? rand   #   push a random number between 0 and 99-1 onto the stack
} *          # execute the previous code block as many times as the input number indicates
]            # collect the random numbers off the stack into an array
$            # sort the array
`            # un-eval the array for output

Answer 7

Octave / MATLAB, 23

sort(rand(input(""),1))

Answer 8

C, 108 chars

You wanted a C (or derived) answer, so here's one.
Gets the number as the first parameter.
Works successfully with numbers up to 10 or so. With larger numbers, it usually overflows the stack (due to my awful algorithm).

f(x,m,r){x&&f(x-(r>m),r>m?printf("%d\n",r),r:m,rand());}
main(c,v)char**v;{srand(time(0));f(atoi(v[1]),0,0);}

Answer 9

R, 19/43(TRUE random) characters

sort(runif(scan()))

Just for fun, selecting TRUE random numbers:

library(random);sort(randomNumbers(scan()))

Answer 10

Scala, 44:

(1 to readInt)map(util.Random.nextInt)sorted

Answer 11

Python, 73 characters

import sys,random
print sorted(eval("random.random(),"*int(sys.argv[1])))

Hopefully imports don't count as defining variables.

Answer 12

Haskell (102 / 71 chars)

As a proper program (102 chars)

import Random
import List
main=getLine>>=(\n->getStdGen>>=(print.sort.take n.randomRs(0,256*n))).read

Or in GHCi (71 chars)

:m Random List
getLine>>=(`fmap`getStdGen).(sort.).(.randoms).take.read

Answer 13

Nice to see that you are looking for js solutions too! :)

(NOTE: the io is done using prompts, alerts. Could've used node.js, but feeling a bit lazy :))

JS:

var inp = prompt('Enter the number of random numbers'),
    out = [];
for(var i = -1; ++i < inp; )
    out.push(Math.random());
alert(out.sort());