std::sample

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

Memory management library

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

General utilities library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Strings library

Text processing library

Numerics library

Date and time library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution control library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Algorithm library

Constrained algorithms and algorithms on ranges (C++20)
Constrained algorithms, e.g. ranges::copy, ranges::sort, ...
Execution policies (C++17)
is_execution_policy (C++17)   execution::seqexecution::parexecution::par_unseqexecution::unseq (C++17)    (C++17)(C++17)(C++20)	execution::sequenced_policyexecution::parallel_policyexecution::parallel_unsequenced_policyexecution::parallel_unsequenced (C++17)(C++17)(C++17)(C++20)
Non-modifying sequence operations Batch operations for_each for_each_n (C++17) Search operations all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)                (C++11)(C++11) countcount_if mismatch equal findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of adjacent_find search search_n Modifying sequence operations Copy operations copycopy_if (C++11) copy_backward copy_n (C++11) move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) Swap operations swap iter_swap swap_ranges Transformation operations replacereplace_if transform replace_copyreplace_copy_if Generation operations fill fill_n generate generate_n Removing operations removeremove_if unique remove_copyremove_copy_if unique_copy Order-changing operations reverse reverse_copy rotate rotate_copy random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11) shift_leftshift_right (C++20)(C++20) Sampling operations sample (C++17)	Sorting and related operations Partitioning operations partition partition_copy (C++11)   stable_partition is_partitioned (C++11) partition_point (C++11) Sorting operations sort stable_sort partial_sort partial_sort_copy is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11) nth_element Binary search operations (on partitioned ranges) lower_bound upper_bound equal_range binary_search Set operations (on sorted ranges) includes set_union set_intersection set_difference set_symmetric_difference Merge operations (on sorted ranges) merge inplace_merge Heap operations push_heap pop_heap make_heap sort_heap is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11) Minimum/maximum operations max min minmax (C++11) clamp (C++17) max_element min_element minmax_element (C++11) Lexicographical comparison operations lexicographical_compare lexicographical_compare_three_way (C++20) Permutation operations next_permutation prev_permutation is_permutation (C++11) C library qsort bsearch
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)
Operations on uninitialized memory
uninitialized_copy uninitialized_move (C++17)    uninitialized_fill uninitialized_copy_n (C++11) uninitialized_move_n (C++17) uninitialized_fill_n	destroy (C++17) destroy_n (C++17) destroy_at (C++17) construct_at (C++20)       uninitialized_default_construct (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct (C++17) uninitialized_default_construct_n (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct_n (C++17)

 

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

Selects n elements from the sequence [first, last) (without replacement) 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 all elements in the sequence.

The algorithm is stable (preserves the relative order of the selected elements) only if PopulationIt meets the requirements of LegacyForwardIterator.

If the value type of first(until C++20)*first(since C++20) is not writable to out, the program is ill-formed.

If any of the following conditions is satisfied, the behavior is undefined:

• out is in [first, last).
• PopulationIt does not meet the requirements of LegacyInputIterator.
• SampleIt does not meet the requirements of LegacyOutputIterator.
• All following conditions are satisfied:

PopulationIt does not meet the requirements of LegacyForwardIterator.	(until C++23)
PopulationIt does not model forward_iterator.	(since C++23)

• SampleIt does not meet the requirements of LegacyRandomAccessIterator.

• Given the type T as std::remove_reference_t<URBG>, any of the following conditions is satisfied:

• T does not meet the requirements of UniformRandomBitGenerator.

The return type of T is not convertible to Distance.

(until C++20)

Parameters

first, last	-	the pair of iterators defining the range of elements from which to make the sampling (the population)
out	-	the output iterator where the samples are written
n	-	number of samples to make
g	-	the random number generator used as the source of randomness
Type requirements
- Distance must be an integer type.

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).

Possible implementation

See the implementations in libstdc++, libc++ and MSVC STL.

Notes

This function may implement selection sampling or reservoir sampling.

Feature-test macro	Value	Std	Feature
__cpp_lib_sample	201603L	(C++17)	std::sample

Example

Run this code

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <iterator>
#include <random>
#include <string>
 
int main()
{
    std::string in {"ABCDEFGHIJK"}, out;
    std::sample(in.begin(), in.end(), std::back_inserter(out), 4,
                std::mt19937 {std::random_device{}()});
    std::cout << "Four random letters out of " << in << " : " << out << '\n';
}

Possible output:

Four random letters out of ABCDEFGHIJK: EFGK

See also

random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11)	randomly re-orders elements in a range (function template)
ranges::sample (C++20)	selects N random elements from a sequence (algorithm function object)