Best way to randomize a list of strings in Python
PythonStringRandomPython Problem Overview
I receive as input a list of strings and need to return a list with these same strings but in randomized order. I must allow for duplicates - same string may appear once or more in the input and must appear the same number of times in the output.
I see several "brute force" ways of doing that (using loops, god forbid), one of which I'm currently using. However, knowing Python there's probably a cool one-liner do get the job done, right?
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
>>> import random
>>> x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 4]
>>> random.shuffle(x)
>>> x
[4, 4, 3, 1, 2, 3]
>>> random.shuffle(x)
>>> x
[3, 4, 2, 1, 3, 4]
Solution 2 - Python
Looks like this is the simplest way, if not the most truly random (this question more fully explains the limitations): http://docs.python.org/library/random.html#random.shuffle
Solution 3 - Python
Given a string item, here is a one-liner:
''.join([str(w) for w in random.sample(item, len(item))])
Solution 4 - Python
You'll have to read the strings into an array and then use a shuffling algorithm. I recommend Fisher-Yates shuffle
Solution 5 - Python
In python 3.8 you can use the walrus to help cram it into a couple of lines First you have to create a list from the string and store it into a variable. Then you can use random to shuffle it. Then just join the list back into a string.
random.shuffle(x := list("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"))
x = "".join(x)
Solution 6 - Python
import random
b = []
a = int(input(print("How many items you want to shuffle? ")))
for i in range(0, a):
n = input('Please enter a item: ')
b.append(n)
random.shuffle(b)
print(b)