"TypeError: expected a character buffer object" for loop and while loop function

Question

I have written some code which takes a sample of 100 numbers and randomly samples them to increase the list of numbers, then cuts them back down to 100 at random.

I am counting the number of iterations through the loop it takes for all the numbers in the list to be the same number.

output = open("results.txt", 'w')
for i in range(100):
    population = range(0, 100)

    TTF = 0

    while len(set(population)) != 1:
        scalingfactor = np.random.poisson(5, 100)
        sample = np.repeat(population, scalingfactor)
        decrease-to-ten = np.random.choice(sample, 100)
        population = decrease-to-ten
        results += 1    
    output.write(str(results))

I am trying to output the numbers to a text file as a list, but I can't manage it.

output.write(str(results))

This gives me all the numbers together as one long string of numbers.

output.write(TTF)

gives me this error:

TypeError: expected a character buffer object

Michael · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-26 00:56:03Z

1

One way or another, you can only write character buffers to python File objects. And python won't include newlines by default when you write to a file, you have to include those yourselves.

I'll also recommend using a context manager for your File object.

See this code:

with open("results.txt", 'w') as output:
    for i in range(100):
        population = range(0, 100)

        # TTF = 0  # Nothing is done with this number. Why is it here?

        while len(set(population)) != 1:
            scalingfactor = np.random.poisson(5, 100)
            sample = np.repeat(population, scalingfactor)
            decrease-to-ten = np.random.choice(sample, 100)
            population = decrease-to-ten
            results += 1    
        output.write(f"{results}\n")  # Assuming you're using Python >= 3.6

If you're on an older version of Python that doesn't support f-string, replace f"{results}\n" with "{0}\n".format(results)

answered Sep 26, 2019 at 0:56

Michael

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1 Comment

wilberox Over a year ago

I'm using python 2.7 so thanks for the clarification

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