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A simple way to draw for Christmas Kindle

A simple way to draw for Christmas Kindle

A much simpler Christmas kindle draw by simple permutation (sample).

Main Idea : Keep it simple

R Code

Using R this gives the following

simple_secret_santa <-function(names){
   n = length(names)
   s <- sample(names, n, replace = FALSE)
   final <- cbind(s,rep('give to',n),c(s[2:n],s[1]))
   final
}

It guarantees that nobody gives to himself, and it also prevent circular gifting - ie A give to B and B give to A (except if there is only 2 persons).

And we can use it simply like this:

names <- c('Robert','Anna','Louis','Joseph','Mary','Antoine','Alex')

simple_secret_santa(names=names)

Person 'give to' Person 'Robert' 'give to' 'Louis' 'Louis' 'give to' 'Joseph' 'Joseph' 'give to' 'Anna' 'Anna' 'give to' 'Antoine' 'Antoine' 'give to' 'Mary' 'Mary' 'give to' 'Robert'

Python code

The same code in python gives

import random

def simple_secret_santa(names):
  n = len(names)
  s = random.sample(names,k=n)
  for i,name in enumerate(s):
    if i == len(s)-1:
      to = s[0]
    else:
      to = s[i+1]
    print str(i+1) + "   "+name + ' gives to ' + to
names = ('Robert','Anna','Louis','Joseph','Mary','Antoine','Alex')
simple_secret_santa(names)

Which gives us:

n Giver Action Recipient
1 Alex gives to Anna
2 Anna gives to Mary
3 Mary gives to Robert
4 Robert gives to Antoine
5 Antoine gives to Louis
6 Louis gives to Joseph
7 Joseph gives to Alex

References