On Sat, Sep 24, 2011 at 12:55 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > If you want unbiased, random (or at least pseudo-random) integers chosen > from an uniform distribution with proper error checking, you should use > randint or randrange. > > >> but if you just >> want a pile of more-or-less random integers, int(random.random()*top) >> is the best option. > > "I only need random-ish ints, but I need 'em yesterday!!!" > > If you want biased, not-quite-uniformly distributed integers with no error > checking, then the above will save you a few nanoseconds per call. So if > your application needs a million such ints, you might save a full five > seconds or so. Sounds like premature optimization to me, but what do I > know? If you have an application where the quality of randomness is > unimportant and generating random ints is a genuine performance bottleneck, > then go right ahead.
Peeking under the hood, after all the error-checking and extra features, randrange basically just does int(random.random() * top). Any bias present in the latter will also be present in the former. Cheers, Ian -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
