Random card game

Question

I'm currently doing a random card game project, the program should show 5random cards to the user, (first question): I dont get how to random a list of letters and heres my code:

def play():
    hand = ["A","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","T","J","Q","K"]

    for i in range(len(hand)):
        card = random.choice[{hand},4]   

    print "User >>>> ",card
    return card

Second question: If the user wants to change the position of the card . the user should type in the no. of position change, then the program should change the card randomly. for example : AJ891, user typed: 1 , --> A2891. what should I do? Here's my original code but it doesn't work out

def ask_pos():
    pos_change = raw_input("From which position (and on) would you want to change? (0 to 4)? ")
    while not (pos_change.isdigit()):
        print "Your input must be an integer number"
        pos_change = raw_input("From which position (and on) would you want to change? (0 to 4)? ")
        if (pos_change > 4) :
            print "Sorry the value has to be between 0 and 4, please re-type"
            pos_change = raw_input("From which position (and on) would you want to change? (0 to 4)? ")
    return pos_change

    hand = ["A","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","T","J","Q","K"]

    for i in range(len(hand)):
        card = random.choice[{hand},4]
        new = random.choice[{hand},1]

            for i in range(len(card)):
                if (card[i] == pos_change):
                    card = card + new

    return card

Answer 1

1)

random.choice[{hand},4]

That won't work, bad syntax error. Also choice won't do the trick, sample is what you want:

random.sample(hand, 5)

2)

pick = random.sample(hand, 5)

change = 2  # Entered by the user

pick[change] = random.choice([x for x in hand if x not in pick])

Answer 2

To answer your first question:

import random
hands = ["A","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","T","J","Q","K"]
def play():
    cards = random.sample(hands,5)
    print "User >>>> ", cards
    return cards

random.choice[{hand},4] should result in a syntax error. Firstly, calling functions you use parenthesis () and not brackets []. Also, I don't see why you need to put braces {} around hand, as it's already a list so nothing needs to be done.

I re-wrote your second question:

def ask_pos(hand):
    while 1:
        pos_change = raw_input("From which position (and on) would you want to change? (0 to 4)? ")
        if int(pos_change) < 0 or int(pos_change) > 4:
            continue
        else:
            break
    hand[int(pos_change)] = random.choice(hands)
    return hand

When run:

>>> myhand = play()
User >>>>  ['6', '8', 'A', '9', '4']

>>> ask_pos(myhand)
From which position (and on) would you want to change? (0 to 4)? 0
['Q', '8', 'A', '9', '4']

Answer 3

You could use random.randrange(number), and then pull out the index at that position.