package main import ( "bufio" "fmt" "log" "math" "math/rand" "os" "time" ) const ( randomMin = 0 randomMax = 999999999999999999 // int64 max value is 9223372036854775807. We use one digit less than that with all 9's in order to not give bias to any digits. numSamples = 100000000 // A nice rounded human number ) func main() { results := [9]int{} // There are 9 possible leading digits and 0 does not count, offset by 1 for index to actual value. Examples: To access 1 use [0]. To access 5 use [4]. To access 9 use [8]. currentSample := 0 statusTicker := time.NewTicker(time.Second) go func() { for { <-statusTicker.C percentCompleted := (currentSample * 100) / numSamples log.Printf("%d%% completed generating and analyzing samples", percentCompleted) } }() log.Printf("generating numbers...") rand.Seed(time.Now().UnixNano()) for currentSample = 0; currentSample < numSamples; currentSample++ { results[firstDigit(rand.Intn(randomMax-randomMin+1)+randomMin)-1]++ // We must use Intn instead of Int because from Base10's perspective, integers cut off at a really weird spot } statusTicker.Stop() log.Printf("done.") // output results for digitMinusOne, count := range results { fmt.Printf("%d: %d (%f%%)\n", digitMinusOne+1, count, float64(count*100)/float64(numSamples)) } fmt.Print("Press 'Enter' to continue...") bufio.NewReader(os.Stdin).ReadBytes('\n') } // firstDigit returns the first/leftmost digit of the base10 representation of an integer func firstDigit(x int) int { return int(math.Abs(float64(x)) / math.Pow(10, float64(numDigits(x)-1))) } // numDigits returns the number of digits func numDigits(x int) int { if x == 0 { return 1 } return int(math.Floor(math.Log10(math.Abs(float64(x))))) + 1 }