I am making a hangman game in Python, and I understand how to randomly select an item from a list, but I was wondering if there was a way to randomly select the list in general.
For example, I have two lists, list1 and list2 Is there a way to randomly select between list1 and list2, and then randomly select a word from the randomly selected list.
I hope that makes sense
You could use random.choice twice:
import random
first = ['one', 'word']
second = ['two', 'more', 'and']
selected = random.choice(random.choice([first, second]))
print(selected)
Output
word
import random
# Create a list of your lists
list_of_lists = [lists1, list2, list3]
# Select a random list from your list of lists
random_list = random.choice(list_of_lists)
# Select a random word from the randomly selected list
random_word = random.choice(random_list)
You can use random.choice to select a random list, and then use random.choice again to select a value from that list:
import random
list1 = ['1','2','3']
list2 = ['4','5','6']
word = random.choice(random.choice([list1, list2]))
The two list case if covered by other answers.
If you have an arbitrarily nested, possibly irregular list (or sequence), you can write a recursive function.
from collections import Sequence
import random
def go_deeper(x):
return (isinstance(x, Sequence) and not
isinstance(x, (str, bytes))) # and other sequence types you wish to exclude
def select(candidate):
if go_deeper(candidate):
return select(random.choice(candidate))
return candidate
Demo:
>>> l = ['foo', 'bar']
>>> select(l)
'bar'
>>>
>>> l = [[[(0,)]]]
>>> select(l)
0
>>>
>>> l = [1, 2, [3, 4, [5]], [[6, [7, 8]], 9]]
>>> select(l)
9
>>> select(l)
1
>>> select(l)
2
random.choice()that list