How do I generate a password with a user chosen length from a valuelist perhaps?

[fm_toxy]

After reading Comments' suggestion on generating random 10 character passwords, I realised that might be a bit constricting, say if you wanted to generate a password with a user chosen length perhaps?

Comments' original post for the script:

http://www.fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/194847/

What I have is two fields in the table and one button.

fieldname: PasswordLength

is linked to a valuelist that gives numbers 6 to 26 in sequence [6,7,8,9,etc]

fieldname: SitePassword

is where I want the script to output to.

button: Generate

would run the mainstay of the script.

From what I presently have:

Middle("1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"; Round(Random * 60; 0)+1; 1)

does the random generation for 1 character.

Could someone shed some light on how to do the script?

[i apologize for the following script in pidgin script inglish]

From what I know so far:

// set the storage areas for the script

Let a=number, b=textfield

// get the external variables

Get fieldname[PasswordLength] = a

// run the script while a is greater than zero

While a > 0

do Middle("1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"; Round(Random * 60; 0)+1; 1)

// put the output into one of the stores

add result to b

// reduce the count of a by 1

a = a - 1

// does a equal 0? If yes, output to SitePassword

if a = 0 then

// output b to SitePassword

set fieldname[sitePassword] = b

//if not, loop back to top

else

loop

Now I know the above doesn't work as a script yet : - but that is roughly what I'm after.

The idea being that you can choose a password length of between 6 characters [er... kind of difficult to guess] and 26 characters [whoa! we're talking MI5 then! : ]

and then have that output to the second field - whereupon it gets wrapped up into the ftp linkname that I do through a formula/calculation.

Suggestions would be helpful. Or maybe someone can point me to an already covered topic that they have found on their travels?

Chris

[comment]

To generate a random string of given length, you need either a looping script or a custom function. Either one is rather trivial; the script, for example, could be:

Loop

Exit Loop If [ Length ( $password ) ≥ Table::PasswordLength ]

Set Variable [ $password ; $password & Middle ( "0123...XYZ" ; Ceiling ( Random * 62 ) ; 1 )

End Loop

Set Field [ Table::Password ; $password ]

BTW, rounding the result of the Random function is not a good idea, because it skews the distribution away from uniform.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Guest
added the script

[fm_toxy]

blimey! :

works like a charm!

It must have taken you 4 mins to write and 6 mins to post! :

thanks very much!

Chris