# Initializing every element of an array with a different distribution

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initializing-every-element-of-an-array-with-a-different-distribution/38862>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Created:** [May 6, 2020, 7:30am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initializing-every-element-of-an-array-with-a-different-distribution/38862 "2020-05-06T07:30:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Manoj\_Gopalkrishnan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/manoj_gopalkrishnan/32/14587_2.png) [@Manoj\_Gopalkrishnan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Manoj_Gopalkrishnan)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 7:30am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initializing-every-element-of-an-array-with-a-different-distribution/38862/1 "2020-05-06T07:30:26Z")

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Hello, I have a Turing model which takes an array of unknown dimensions, and I want every element of that array to take on a different distribution based on the index. However, I’m having trouble making this work. Here’s a minimal example I’m not able to make work:

```julia
@model tr(x) = begin
    x = Array{Any,1}(missing,2)
    x[1] ~ Normal()
    x[2] ~ Normal()
end

model = tr(missing)
model()

```

I would expect that the output would be the x vector, but instead of a pair of numbers, I’m getting only one number, like so:

```julia
model()
-1.8639815507482753

```

What am I doing wrong, what’s the right way to do this? Note: I don’t want to declare

```julia
x1 ~ Normal()
x2 ~ Normal()
x = [x1, x2]

```

That will serve the purpose for this toy example, but when the dimensions of the array are unknown, and the distribution of the i’th element depends on i, I can’t use that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Manoj\_Gopalkrishnan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/manoj_gopalkrishnan/32/14587_2.png) [@Manoj\_Gopalkrishnan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Manoj_Gopalkrishnan)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 7:33am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initializing-every-element-of-an-array-with-a-different-distribution/38862/2 "2020-05-06T07:33:03Z")

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Ok I managed to figure this out myself. I just drop the x from tr(x), and return x.

```julia
@model tr() = begin
    x = Array{Any,1}(missing,2)
    x[1] ~ Normal()
    x[2] ~ Normal()
    return x
end

```

That seems to work.