How do I sample randomly based on some probability(wightage)?

Sumitava Mukherjee smukh at cognobytes.com
Tue May 26 14:39:36 EDT 2009


Hi all,
I need to randomly sample from a list where all choices have weights
attached to them. The probability of them being choosen is dependent
on the weights.
If say Sample list of choices are [A,B,C,D,E] and weights of the same
are [0.895,0.567,0.765,0.890,0.60] when I draw (say 2) samples then I
want the likeliness of them being chosen be in the order : D>A>C>E>B

In short I mean if prob of a H is .9 and probability of T be 0.1 then
if I draw 10 samples, 9 should be H and 1 should be T.

I coudn't find a function in the module random that does so.
Please can someone guide me how the above could be implemented [either
through some function which exists and I don't know or pointers to
some code snippets which does so]?



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