Lottery number generator

Question

Hi Everyone,
I just bought myself a lottery ticket and as I was driving home why not write a small program to generate my own numbers?  I came up with the following but I can't seem to figure out why I am getting the following error: 
PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'PUT_LINE'
code below.
declare
lot_num  integer;
fst_num   integer;
sec_num   integer;
thrd_num  integer;
begin
for lot in 1..3
loop
select dbms_random.value(00, 59) num into lot_num from dual;
If fst_num is null then
lot_num := fst_num;
elsif sec_num is null then
lot_num := sec_num;
elsif thrd_num is null then
lot_num := thrd_num;
end if;
end loop;
dbms_output.put_line(fst_num, sec_num, thrd_num);  <==== It complains about this line.  I tried the index named "lot"  and the lot_num as a  reference but no luck.
end;
Thanks for your help in advance.
Regards,
Al

Answer 1

Hi, Al,
I'm confused.  Are there 6 distinct integers, or are there 5 distinct integers plus one that may be a duplicate?
Here's one way to generate 5 distinct integers in the range 1-60 plus a "powerball" number in the range 1-35, which may be the same as one of the first 5 numbers:
WITH got_r_num AS
    SELECT  LEVEL                                            AS n
    ,       ROW_NUMBER () OVER (ORDER BY dbms_random.value)  AS r_num
    FROM    dual
    CONNECT BY   LEVEL  <= 60
SELECT    TO_CHAR (r_num, '99999999')        AS label
,         n
FROM      got_r_num
WHERE     r_num   <= 5
    UNION ALL
SELECT    'POWERBALL'                        AS label
,         TRUNC (dbms_random.value (1, 36))  AS n
FROM      dual
ORDER BY  label
Sample output:
LABEL              N
        1         59
        2         31
        3         50
        4         27
        5         43
POWERBALL         10
If the order of the 5 distinct numbers is unimportant, you may want to change the main query a little:
WITH got_r_num AS
    SELECT  LEVEL                                            AS n
    ,       ROW_NUMBER () OVER (ORDER BY dbms_random.value)  AS r_num
    FROM    dual
    CONNECT BY   LEVEL  <= 60
SELECT    NULL                              AS label
,         n
FROM      got_r_num
WHERE     r_num   <= 5
    UNION ALL
SELECT   'POWERBALL'                        AS label
,        TRUNC (dbms_random.value (1, 36))  AS n
FROM     dual
ORDER BY  label  NULLS FIRST
,        n
Sample output:
LABEL              N
                   3
                  11
                  19
                  26
                  35
POWERBALL         11
The 5 unique numbers will always be shown in ascending order.