[Tutor] Need help understanding output...

[Laurens Vets]

<snip>
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> Thank you all for your help! I've added another condition to this program, namely, in a range of 60, each 'random' number can only occur 10 times. I came up with the following:
>>
>> import random
>> series = []
>> for i in range(60):
>>   temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
>>   while series[-2:-1] == series[-1:] == temp:
>>     temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
>>   while series.count(temp[0])>= 10:
>>     temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
>>   series.extend(temp)
>> print series
>>
>> However, this also generates gems such as:
>>
>> [4, 4, 3, 6, 3, 2, 6, 3, 4, 3, 4, 1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 4, 4, 6, 2, 1, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 3, 3, 1, 6, 6, 4, 1, 5, 2, 6, 6, 4, 2, 5, 3, 1, 5, 5, 2, 1, _2_, _2_, _2_, 3, 3, 2, 1, 5, 1, 1, 5, 1]
>>
>> [1, 4, 3, 1, 5, 3, 5, 1, 5, 6, 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4, 1, 5, 5, 2, 6, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1, 6, 6, 3, 2, 3, 6, 4, 5, 6, 5, 6, 3, 6, 2, 4, 5, 3, 3, 4, 6, _4_, _4_, _4_, 5, 4, _2_, _2_, _2_, _2_]
>>
>> I thought this needed to become the following:
>>
>> import random
>> series = []
>> for i in range(60):
>>   temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
>>   print "Temp", i, ":", temp
>>   while series[-2:-1] == series[-1:] == series:
>>     if series.count(temp[0])>= 10:
>>       temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
>>   series.extend(temp)
>> print series
>>
>> But this just hangs whenever the while clause matches. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here. I do know the random.shuffle() function, but I can't put my conditions in there.
>
> I assume the '== series:' is a typo, and should be '== temp'. Otherwise I don't see how this matches, unless series = [] (which means the while clause always matches, right at the start. Perhaps that actually is what you're seeing?).
> That's probably the disadvantage of using a list to avoid an IndexError (sorry Steven; I would have just caught the IndexError, or have an 'if i<  2: continue' statement in there.)

Yes of course :) That's a typo on my part.  I came up with the following 
which I think works as well?

import random
reeks = []
for i in range(60):
   temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
   while reeks[-2:-1] == reeks[-1:] == temp:
     temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
     if reeks.count(temp[0]) >= 10:
       temp = [random.randint(1, 6)]
   reeks.extend(temp)
print reeks


> As suggestion for avoiding occurrences of>  10 times: use a dict, where the random numbers become the keys and you add +1 every time to d[temp]. Checking if d[temp]>  10 is then very easy.

I'll check dicts as well.  Thank you! :)