Noah R
Noah R

Reputation: 5477

How do I perform a random event in Python by picking a random variable?

Let's say I have to variables, dog and cat. Dog = 5, and cat = 3. How would I tell Python to pick one of these variables by random and print it to the screen?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 31411

Answers (3)

I tried out the first method and second method, and none of them worked. So I am using a version of python which is 3.0, and this is the only thing that actually worked. The solutions are deprecated. Not true, wrong post.

Here is the working solution:

import random
dog = str([5])
cat = str([3])
variables = dog, cat
print(random.sample(variables, 1))

Upvotes: 0

user470379
user470379

Reputation: 4879

You can put all the variables you want to choose from in a list and use the random module to pick one for you.

import random
dog = 5
cat = 3
vars = [dog,cat]
print random.sample(vars, 1)

The sample method takes two arguments: the population you want to choose from, and the number of samples you want (in this case you only want one variable chosen).

Upvotes: 2

Rafe Kettler
Rafe Kettler

Reputation: 76955

import random
print random.choice([dog, cat])

It's that simple. choice() takes a sequence and returns a random selection from it.

Upvotes: 13

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