Hi all,
I am a Python novice, and right now I would be happy to simply get my job
done with it, but I could appreciate some thoughts on the issue below.
I need to assign one of four numbers to names in a list. The assignment
should be pseudo-random: no pattern whatsoever, but deterministic,
After I have written a short Python script that hashes my textfile line by
line and collects the numbers next to the original, I checked what I got.
Instead of getting around 25% in each treatment, the range is 17.8%-31.3%.
That sounds suspiciously like 25% with a +/- 7% fluctuation one
might
Thank you, Tim. My comments are below.
On 2009-08-07 13:19:47 -0400, Tim Chase python.l...@tim.thechases.com said:
After I have written a short Python script that hashes my textfile line by
line and collects the numbers next to the original, I checked what I got.
Instead of getting around 25%
László Sándor wrote:
Thank you, Tim. My comments are below.
On 2009-08-07 13:19:47 -0400, Tim Chase python.l...@tim.thechases.com
said:
After I have written a short Python script that hashes my textfile
line by
line and collects the numbers next to the original, I checked what I
got.
L wrote:
Hi all,
I am a Python novice, and right now I would be happy to simply get my job
done with it, but I could appreciate some thoughts on the issue below.
I need to assign one of four numbers to names in a list. The assignment
should be pseudo-random: no
Dave Angel wrote:
[clever analysis snipped]
I'd use digest() instead of hexdigest(), and of course reduce the
subscript to 63 or less.
OP: You could also try
hash(line) % 4
While AFAIK it doesn't make promises about randomness it might still be good
enough in practice.
Peter
--
László Sándor sand...@gmail.com writes:
OK, I understand. Could anyone suggest a better way to do this, then?
(Recap: random-looking, close-to uniform assignment of one number out
of four possibilities to strings.)
Use a cryptographic hash function like md5 (deprecated for security
purposes
