How do I pick a number from a set of random numbers?

I have generated numbers 1 through 52 in a random order. Next I have to pick a position and get what number is in that position but I cant do it.

What is a positive integer?

52

n =

52

p =

Columns 1 through 21

23 41 17 36 9 31 4 18 46 34 11 29 39 14 52 20 43 26 42 30 28

Columns 22 through 42

48 32 47 21 19 38 27 2 13 37 49 12 44 33 50 1 24 51 16 35 15

Columns 43 through 52

8 10 6 5 25 3 7 45 40 22

[Torsten]

How are you asked to "pick a position" ?

[John D'Errico]

Your question is what is a positive integer? 42. That is, 42 is a positive integer. Of course, there are other positive integers. Gazillions of them.

You have a vector of length 52. Do you know how to use indexing? So how to extract an element from a vector? If not, then you seriously need to view a getting started tutorial about MATLAB.

What does this do, if V is a vector of, say, length 52? V(3)

So what does that tell you?

[Vincent]

This was my teachers example:

For example, if the “deck” has N = 52 cards, the user might input v = 9, and the program might then reveal the 9th value in the shuffled deck to be 11.

And its supposed to be a positive integer 1 through 52.

[Vincent]

Nevermind Im an idiot

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

Since I suspect this is part of a homework assignment I'm not going to give you the answer, but I will point you toward two functions that may be of interest to you. Take a look at the documentation pages for randperm and randi. Which one you want to use will depend on whether you want to draw cards without replacement (randperm) like you're dealing out a poker hand or with replacement (randi) like if a stage magician asks you to draw a card, look at it, and return it to the deck.