package main import ( "bufio" "fmt" "log" "math" "math/rand" "os" "time" ) const ( randomMin = 1 // We specify a range which random numbers will be generated, we must start at the first possible left-most digit randomMax = 999999999999999999 // int64 max value is 9223372036854775807. We use one digit less than that with all 9's in order to not give bias to any digits. numSamples = 100000000 // A nice rounded human number ) func main() { // In results, we store a count of each left most leading digits as numbers are randomly genereated results := [9]int{} // There are 9 possible leading digits and 0 does not count, offset by 1 for index to actual value. Examples: To access count for 1 use [0]. To access 5 use [4]. To access 9 use [8]. currentSample := 0 // A counter that increments each time a random number sample has been generated. Used for status messages // Start a little goroutine to output status and attach a ticker to execute it each second statusTicker := time.NewTicker(time.Second) go func() { for { <-statusTicker.C // Wait for heartbeat from ticker channel percentCompleted := (currentSample * 100) / numSamples log.Printf("%d%% completed generating and analyzing samples", percentCompleted) } }() log.Printf("generating numbers...") rand.Seed(time.Now().UnixNano()) for currentSample = 0; currentSample < numSamples; currentSample++ { results[firstDigit(rand.Intn(randomMax-randomMin+1)+randomMin)-1]++ // Generate a random number between randomMin and randomMax, get the first digit then increment the counter in results array, remember, it's offset by 1 } // Done generating and counting digits, stop the status ticker statusTicker.Stop() log.Printf("done.") // Output results for digitMinusOne, digitCount := range results { fmt.Printf("%d: %d (%f%%)\n", digitMinusOne+1, digitCount, float64(digitCount*100)/float64(numSamples)) } // Wait indefinitely until Enter Key is pressed, avoid terminating terminal before viewing results if ran from a shell fmt.Print("Press 'Enter' to continue...") bufio.NewReader(os.Stdin).ReadBytes('\n') } // firstDigit returns the first/leftmost digit of the base10 representation of an integer func firstDigit(x int) int { return int(math.Abs(float64(x)) / math.Pow(10, float64(numDigits(x)-1))) } // numDigits returns the number of digits func numDigits(x int) int { if x == 0 { return 1 } return int(math.Floor(math.Log10(math.Abs(float64(x))))) + 1 }