How do you design a rand7 function

Rand7 is supposed to turn one of 7 numbers (0 through 6 OR 1 through 7). Rand5 returns one of 5 numbers. For my explanation, I've assumed that rand7 returns 0 through 6.

There is no deterministic way of doing this [see explanation below]. By "deterministic" we mean that there is no way of doing this such that you can GUARANTEE that the program will return within X calls to rand. So, no, your solution does not work since it is deterministic.

How can you solve it? You'll have to do it with a loop that could, theoretically, loop for a very long time.

Here's one simple way:

1. Call rand5 until you get a number between 0 and 3 (that is, anything but 4). Set b0 (bit 0) to that number % 2. So b0 is 0 if rand5 was 0 or 2, and 1 otherwise.
2. Do the same for bit 1 and bit 2.
3. We now have a 3 bit number -- which will be a number between 0 and 7.
4. If that number is a 7, start over. Else, return.

In other words, we're doing this:

int rand2() {
    int x = rand5();
    if x == 4 return rand2(); // restart
    else return x % 2;
}

int rand7() {
     int x = rand2() * 4 + rand2() * 2 + rand2();
     if (x == 7) return rand7(); // restart
     else return x;
}

Why there's no deterministic solution
Suppose there were a deterministic way of doing this. This means that you are guaranteeing me that within X calls  max to rand5, you can randomly generate a number between 0 and 6 with  equal probability.

Wonderful. Okay.

Observe that:

1. If you run the rand7 program twice, and you get the same results both times for each rand5 call, you'll get the same result for the rand7 program.
2. Some "paths" through the program might call rand5 fewer than X times. However, for the purposes we can treat this as still calling rand5 X times, where it just doesn't use those results.

So, now, we basically have a rand7 program that calls rand5  exactly X times. The results of those calls will determine what the value for rand7.

You can treat the sequence of results for rand5 as a string if you'd like. So, 013 means to get a 0 on the first call, then a 1, then a 3.

How many strings could you make? Well, X slots. 5 possibilities for each slot. So, there are 5^X slots.

Following me so far? Excellent!

Now then. I'd like you to divide those 5^X strings into 7  equal buckets.

What, you can't do that? Because 7 doesn't go into 5^X equally?

Oh. 

Guess your deterministic rand7 program isn't so equally random after all.