Problem using Random

Peter Hansen peter at engcorp.com
Sun Oct 28 01:05:34 EDT 2001


Jeremy Whetzel wrote:
> 
> mylist = ['a','b','c','d','e','f']
> print mylist
> for i in mylist:
>   c = random.choice(mylist)
>   print c
>   mylist.remove(c)
> 
> Is there any way that I can get the random.choice() to go through and
> exhaust all possible choices before quitting?

There are many ways... :)

Your problem above is in iterating over the list with 'i'.  Why
do that, when you are not even using 'i' in the code?

Try something like this instead, as a quick first attempt. 
(Note that the conditional evaluation of mylist returns false
when the list is empty, exiting the loop.)

>>> import random
>>> mylist = ['a','b','c','d','e','f']
>>> while mylist:
...     c = random.choice(mylist)
...     print c
...     mylist.remove(c)
f
a
d
b
c
e

-- 
----------------------
Peter Hansen, P.Eng.
peter at engcorp.com



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