Shuffling a list of objects

Question

I have a list of objects in Python and I want to shuffle them. I thought I could use the random.shuffle method, but this seems to fail when the list is of objects. Is there a method for shuffling object or another way around this?

import random

class a:
    foo = "bar"

a1 = a()
a2 = a()
b = [a1,a2]

print random.shuffle(b)

This will fail.

Answer 1

import random
class a:
    foo = "bar"

a1 = a()
a2 = a()
b = [a1.foo,a2.foo]
random.shuffle(b)

Answer 2

from random import random
my_list = range(10)
shuffled_list = sorted(my_list, key=lambda x: random())

This alternative may be useful for some applications where you want to swap the ordering function.

Answer 3

As you learned the in-place shuffling was the problem. I also have problem frequently, and often seem to forget how to copy a list, too. Using sample(a, len(a)) is the solution, using len(a) as the sample size. See https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/random.html#random.sample for the Python documentation.

Here's a simple version using random.sample() that returns the shuffled result as a new list.

import random

a = range(5)
b = random.sample(a, len(a))
print a, b, "two list same:", a == b
# print: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4] [2, 1, 3, 4, 0] two list same: False

# The function sample allows no duplicates.
# Result can be smaller but not larger than the input.
a = range(555)
b = random.sample(a, len(a))
print "no duplicates:", a == list(set(b))

try:
    random.sample(a, len(a) + 1)
except ValueError as e:
    print "Nope!", e

# print: no duplicates: True
# print: Nope! sample larger than population

Answer 4

Plan: Write out the shuffle without relying on a library to do the heavy lifting. Example: Go through the list from the beginning starting with element 0; find a new random position for it, say 6, put 0’s value in 6 and 6’s value in 0. Move on to element 1 and repeat this process, and so on through the rest of the list

import random
iteration = random.randint(2, 100)
temp_var = 0
while iteration > 0:

    for i in range(1, len(my_list)): # have to use range with len()
        for j in range(1, len(my_list) - i):
            # Using temp_var as my place holder so I don't lose values
            temp_var = my_list[i]
            my_list[i] = my_list[j]
            my_list[j] = temp_var

        iteration -= 1

Answer 5

It works fine. I am trying it here with functions as list objects:

    from random import shuffle

    def foo1():
        print "foo1",

    def foo2():
        print "foo2",

    def foo3():
        print "foo3",

    A=[foo1,foo2,foo3]

    for x in A:
        x()

    print "\r"

    shuffle(A)
    for y in A:
        y()

It prints out: foo1 foo2 foo3 foo2 foo3 foo1 (the foos in the last row have a random order)

Answer 6

It took me some time to get that too. But the documentation for shuffle is very clear:

shuffle list x in place; return None.

So you shouldn't print random.shuffle(b). Instead do random.shuffle(b) and then print b.