6.9) The Random Module
It can be handy to be able to generate a random number, for example to sample a mathematical distribution. In Python, you have to use the random module.
To use the module, you have to import it:
>>> import random
You can then use functions that are defined within the module (e.g. .random()) like this:
>>> x=random.random()
If you only want to use one function from a module, you can import only that specific function and you can avoid writing random. before the function name.
>>> from random import random # which is: from module import function >>> x=random()
The random module contains several useful functions:
>>> import random >>> random.random() # generates a random float in the range [0.0,1.0) 0.8114280822203986 >>> random.choice([1,2,3,4]) # randomly picks an element from a list 4 >>> random.randint(1,6) # picks an integer in the range [1,6] >>> L=[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] >>> random.shuffle(L) # shuffles an existing list >>> print L # note that L has been modified [5, 9, 8, 7, 1, 4, 10, 6, 2, 3]