Create an array with random values

How can I create an array with 40 elements, with random values from 0 to 39 ? Like

[4, 23, 7, 39, 19, 0, 9, 14, ...]

I tried using solutions from here:

http://freewebdesigntutorials.com/javaScriptTutorials/jsArrayObject/randomizeArrayElements.htm

but the array I get is very little randomized. It generates a lot of blocks of successive numbers…

Answer

Here’s a solution that shuffles a list of unique numbers (no repeats, ever).

for (var a=[],i=0;i<40;++i) a[i]=i;

// http://stackoverflow.com/questions/962802#962890
function shuffle(array) {
  var tmp, current, top = array.length;
  if(top) while(--top) {
    current = Math.floor(Math.random() * (top + 1));
    tmp = array[current];
    array[current] = array[top];
    array[top] = tmp;
  }
  return array;
}

a = shuffle(a);

If you want to allow repeated values (which is not what the OP wanted) then look elsewhere. 🙂