selecting random part of string

say I have

alphabet='abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'

how do i select a random letter from the alphabet so Guess= random letter from alphabet and once I have selected a random letter from the alphabet, then remove that letter from the alphabet.

Thank you

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

Max - use randperm to generate a random index into your character array. Try the following

 alphabet = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
 randIdx  = randperm(length(alphabet),1); % generate the random index into array
 randChar = alphabet(randIdx);            % get the random character
 alphabet(randIdx) = [];                  % remove the character

For example, if

 randIdx =
    14

then

 randChar =
     n

and

 alphabet =
     abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz

with the 'n' removed.