RANPERM Function
RANPERM (n) ;
RANPERM (set, <, numperm> ) ;
The RANPERM function generates random permutations of a set with 
elements. The random number seed is set by the RANDSEED subroutine.
The first argument, set, can be a scalar or a vector. If set is a scalar, the function returns indices in the range 1–. If set is a vector, the number of elements of the vector determines and the RANPERM function returns elements of set, which can be numeric or character.
By default, the RANPERM function returns a single random combination with one row and columns. If the numperm argument is specified, the function returns a matrix with numperm rows and columns. Each row of the returned matrix represents a single permutation.
The following statements generate five random permutations of the set 
:
call randseed(1234); n = 3; p = ranperm(n, 5); print p;
Figure 23.264: Random Permutations of Three Items
| p | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 |
Alternatively, the following statements compute five random permutations of an unsorted character vector:
a = ranperm({C B A}, 5);
print a;
Figure 23.265: Random Permutations of a Character Vector
| a | ||
|---|---|---|
| B | C | A |
| B | A | C |
| C | B | A |
| B | C | A |
| B | C | A |