This is what my problem is: I need to make a random string 50 characters long, made up of 1s and 0s.
I know how to solve this problem, and even have a one-liner for it. I have also looked for various solutions to this problem on SO, only to get back what I already know(1, 2, etc). But what I really want is the most Pythonic way of doing this.
Currently, I'm leaning towards ''.join(( random.choice([0,1]) for i in xrange(50) ))
Is there a more pythonic way of doing this? Is there a built-in that does something like this, perhaps in itertools?
For Python2.7 or better:
In [83]: import random
In [84]: '{:050b}'.format(random.randrange(1<<50))
Out[84]: '10011110110110000011111000011100101111101001001011'
(In Python2.6, use '{0:050b}' instead of '{:050b}'.)
Explanation:
The string.format method can convert integers into their binary string representations. The basic format code to do this is '{:b}':
In [91]: '{:b}'.format(10)
Out[91]: '1010'
To make a string of width 50, use the format code '{:50b}':
In [92]: '{:50b}'.format(10)
Out[92]: ' 1010'
and to fill in the whitespace with zeros, use {:050b}:
In [93]: '{:050b}'.format(10)
Out[93]: '00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001010'
The syntax for str.format is a bit daunting at first.
Here is my cheat sheet:
http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#format-string-syntax
replacement_field ::= "{" field_name ["!" conversion] [":" format_spec] "}"
field_name ::= (identifier|integer)("."attribute_name|"["element_index"]")*
attribute_name ::= identifier
element_index ::= integer
conversion ::= "r" | "s"
format_spec ::= [[fill]align][sign][#][0][width][,][.precision][type]
fill ::= <a character other than '}'>
align ::= "<" | ">" | "=" | "^"
"=" forces the padding to be placed after the sign (if any)
but before the digits. (for numeric types)
"<" left justification
">" right justification
"^" center justification
sign ::= "+" | "-" | " "
"+" places a plus/minus sign for all numbers
"-" places a sign only for negative numbers
" " places a leading space for positive numbers
# for integers with type b,o,x, tells format to prefix
output with 0b, 0o, or 0x.
0 enables zero-padding. equivalent to 0= fill align.
width ::= integer
, tells format to use a comma for a thousands separator
precision ::= integer
type ::= "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "E" | "f" | "F" | "g" | "G" | "n" |
"o" | "x" | "X" | "%"
c convert integer to corresponding unicode character
n uses a locale-aware separator
% multiplies number by 100, display in 'f' format, with percent sign
# Choose a number in [0, 1L << 50), and format it as binary.
# The [2:] lops off the prefix "0b"
bit_str = bin(random.randint(0, (1L << 50) - 1))[2:]
# We then need to pad to 50 bits.
fifty_random_bits = '%s%s' % ('0' * (50 - len(bit_str)), bit_str)
That looks pretty pythonic to me.
You can lose the brackets if you wish to save on characters:
''.join( random.choice(['0','1']) for i in xrange(50) )
from random import choice
from itertools import repeat
# map or generator expression, take your pick
"".join( map( choice, repeat( "01", 50)))
"".join( choice(x) for x in repeat("01", 50))
Change the inputs to repeat to generalize.
