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rrandomuniquesample

sample list randomly and remove used values

I have a problem (maybe it is not that difficult but I cannot figure it out:

I have a list (l) of 25 and I want to divide the list into 5 groups but randomly. The problem I have is if I use sample(l, 5) and this 5times it does not give me unique samples. So basically, I am looking for is to choose 5 then remove them from the list and then sample again.

I hope someone has a solution... thanks

Solution

  • If you want Andrew's method as a function

    sample2 <- function(x, sample.size){
 split(x, sample(ceiling(seq_along(x)/sample.size)))
}

sample2(1:20, 5)

    gives

    $`1`
[1]  1 15  6  3 18

$`2`
[1] 11  7  5 10 14

$`3`
[1]  2 12  4 13 17

$`4`
[1] 19 16 20  8  9