Source code: Lib/random.py

This module implements pseudo-random number generators for various distributions.

For integers, there is uniform selection from a range. For sequences, there is uniform selection of a random element, a function to generate a random permutation of a list in-place, and a function for random sampling without replacement.

On the real line, there are functions to compute uniform, normal (Gaussian), lognormal, negative exponential, gamma, and beta distributions. For generating distributions of angles, the von Mises distribution is available.

Almost all module functions depend on the basic function random(), which generates a random float uniformly in the half-open range 0.0 > deck = 'ace two three four'.split() >>> shuffle(deck) # Shuffle a list >>> deck ['four', 'two', 'ace', 'three'] >>> sample([10, 20, 30, 40, 50], k=4) # Four samples without replacement [40, 10, 50, 30]

Simulations:

Example of statistical bootstrapping using resampling with replacement to estimate a confidence interval for the mean of a sample:

Example of a resampling permutation test to determine the statistical significance or p-value of an observed difference between the effects of a drug versus a placebo:

Simulation of arrival times and service deliveries for a multiserver queue:

See also

Statistics for Hackers a video tutorial by Jake Vanderplas on statistical analysis using just a few fundamental concepts including simulation, sampling, shuffling, and cross-validation.

Economics Simulation a simulation of a marketplace by Peter Norvig that shows effective use of many of the tools and distributions provided by this module (gauss, uniform, sample, betavariate, choice, triangular, and randrange).

A Concrete Introduction to Probability (using Python) a tutorial by Peter Norvig covering the basics of probability theory, how to write simulations, and how to perform data analysis using Python.

These recipes show how to efficiently make random selections from the combinatoric iterators in the itertools module:

The default random() returns multiples of 2⁻⁵³ in the range 0.0 ≤ x < 1.0. All such numbers are evenly spaced and are exactly representable as Python floats. However, many other representable floats in that interval are not possible selections. For example, 0.05954861408025609 isn’t an integer multiple of 2⁻⁵³.

The following recipe takes a different approach. All floats in the interval are possible selections. The mantissa comes from a uniform distribution of integers in the range 2⁵² ≤ mantissa < 2⁵³. The exponent comes from a geometric distribution where exponents smaller than -53 occur half as often as the next larger exponent.

All real valued distributions in the class will use the new method:

The recipe is conceptually equivalent to an algorithm that chooses from all the multiples of 2⁻¹⁰⁷⁴ in the range 0.0 ≤ x < 1.0. All such numbers are evenly spaced, but most have to be rounded down to the nearest representable Python float. (The value 2⁻¹⁰⁷⁴ is the smallest positive unnormalized float and is equal to math.ulp(0.0).)

See also

Generating Pseudo-random Floating-Point Values a paper by Allen B. Downey describing ways to generate more fine-grained floats than normally generated by random().