random.SystemRandom().randint() inefficient

[Cecil Westerhof]

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper at gmail.com> writes:

> This is orthogonal to your question, but might be of some use to you:
>
> The combination of using len(to_try) as an argument to randint() and
> saving the output to a variable named "index" suggests that you might
> be setting up to select a random element from to_try, as in:
>   something = to_try[index]
>
> If that is the case, you might want to consider using random.choice() instead:
>
>   >>> from random import choice
>   >>> to_try = [2,3,5,7,11,13,"seventeen",19]
>   >>> choice(to_try)
>   2
>   >>> choice(to_try)
>   'seventeen'
>   >>> choice(to_try)
>   13
>   >>> choice(to_try)
>   5
>   >>>

Yes, I try to select a random element, but it has also to be removed,
because an element should not be used more as once.
This is the code I use:
    # index = randbelow(len(to_try))
    index = randrange(len(to_try))
    found = permutation[to_try.pop(index)]

-- 
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof