Generate 'n' unique random numbers within a range
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Track title: Lost Jungle Looping
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Chapters
00:00 Question
00:56 Accepted answer (Score 566)
01:35 Answer 2 (Score 32)
02:03 Answer 3 (Score 17)
02:28 Answer 4 (Score 8)
03:23 Thank you
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Full question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2284...
Accepted answer links:
[random.sample]: https://docs.python.org/2/library/random...
Answer 2 links:
[random.sample]: https://docs.python.org/2/library/random...
Answer 3 links:
[set]: https://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtyp...
Answer 4 links:
[standard library]: https://docs.python.org/2/library/random...
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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...
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Tags
#python #random #unique
#avk47
ACCEPTED ANSWER
Score 590
If you just need sampling without replacement:
>>> import random
>>> random.sample(range(1, 100), 3)
[77, 52, 45]
random.sample takes a population and a sample size k and returns k random members of the population.
If you have to control for the case where k is larger than len(population), you need to be prepared to catch a ValueError:
>>> try:
... random.sample(range(1, 2), 3)
... except ValueError:
... print('Sample size exceeded population size.')
...
Sample size exceeded population size
ANSWER 2
Score 33
Generate the range of data first and then shuffle it like this
import random
data = list(range(numLow, numHigh))
random.shuffle(data)
print data
By doing this way, you will get all the numbers in the particular range but in a random order.
But you can use random.sample to get the number of elements you need, from a range of numbers like this
print random.sample(range(numLow, numHigh), 3)
ANSWER 3
Score 16
You could add to a set until you reach n:
setOfNumbers = set()
while len(setOfNumbers) < n:
setOfNumbers.add(random.randint(numLow, numHigh))
Be careful of having a smaller range than will fit in n. It will loop forever, unable to find new numbers to insert up to n
ANSWER 4
Score 10
You could use the random.sample function from the standard library to select k elements from a population:
import random
random.sample(range(low, high), n)
In case of a rather large range of possible numbers, you could use itertools.islice with an infinite random generator:
import itertools
import random
def random_gen(low, high):
while True:
yield random.randrange(low, high)
gen = random_gen(1, 100)
items = list(itertools.islice(gen, 10)) # Take first 10 random elements
After the question update it is now clear that you need n distinct (unique) numbers.
import itertools
import random
def random_gen(low, high):
while True:
yield random.randrange(low, high)
gen = random_gen(1, 100)
items = set()
# Try to add elem to set until set length is less than 10
for x in itertools.takewhile(lambda x: len(items) < 10, gen):
items.add(x)