How do I select multiple elements from a list?

Question

With this code I'm able to select one comment from comments.txt and comment it without repeating itself. How do I select multiple comments at the same time from the comments.txt without the comments repeating themselves?

def random_comment():
    num = randint(1, COMMAND_AMOUNT)
    while num in USED:
        num = randint(1, COMMAND_AMOUNT)
    USED.append(num)
    return COMMENTS[num]    

USED = []
file = open("comments.txt", "r")
COMMENTS = {num: comment.strip() for num, comment in enumerate(file.readlines(), start=1)}
file.close()

COMMAND_AMOUNT = len(COMMENTS)

Using random will possibly give you repeats. Instead do a random shuffle of the list and pick comments in order from the shuffled list. — rossum
– rossum, Commented Jul 11, 2021 at 20:25

zr0gravity7 · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-11 16:00:07Z

1

You can use random.sample():

SAMPLE_SIZE = 4 # for example (your question does not indicate how many element should be selected)

def random_comments():
    return random.sample(COMMENTS, SAMPLE_SIZE)

answered Jul 11, 2021 at 16:00

zr0gravity7

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Booboo · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-11 16:09:27Z

0

If you want to ensure there are no repeats:

import random

with open("comments", "r") as f:
    COMMENTS = [comment.strip() for comment in f]
random.shuffle(COMMENTS)

def random_comment():
    return COMMENTS.pop() if COMMENTS else None

# print all the comments until no more:
for comment in iter(random_comment, None):
    print(comment)

answered Jul 11, 2021 at 16:09

Booboo

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