Another newbie question from Nathan.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:25:00 -0600, Nathan Pinno wrote:

> 
> 
>   Hi all.
> 
>   How do I make the computer generate 4 random numbers for the guess? I want
> to know because I'm writing a computer program in Python like the game
> MasterMind.

First you get the computer to generate one random number. Then you do it
again three more times.

If you only need to do it once, you could do it this way:

import random  # you need this at the top of your program
x0 = random.random()
x1 = random.random()
x2 = random.random()
x3 = random.random()


But if you need to do it more than once, best to create a function that
returns four random numbers in one go.

def four_random():
    """Returns a list of four random numbers."""
    L = []  # start with an empty list
    for i in range(4):
        L.append(random.random())
    return L

and use it this way:

rand_nums = four_random()
# rand_nums is a list of four numbers
print rand_nums[0]  # prints the first random number
print rand_nums[3]  # prints the last one

or like this:

alpha, beta, gamma, delta = four_random()
# four names for four separate numbers


-- 
Steven.