Python .choice()

The .choice() method returns a random item chosen from an iterable argument, such as a list or a dictionary.

Syntax

random.choice(iterable)

An iterable can be any kind of sequence-oriented variable, including:

• A string of characters ("Hello, World!").
• A range of steps (range(10)).
• A list of items ([0, 1]).
• A tuple of data values ((0, "one")).

Example 1

In the example below, .choice() returns an item sampled at random from a list called shopping_list:

import random

shopping_list = ["milk", "eggs", "bread", "apples"]
to_buy = random.choice(shopping_list)

print(to_buy)

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After to_buy is assigned one of the four shopping items with .choice(), it is printed.

Example 2

Since strings are lists of single characters, they can be passed as arguments to the .choice() method:

import random

my_string = "Coding!"

print(random.choice(my_string))

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Codebyte Example

In the example below, .choice() is used to return a random element from the to_learn tuple:

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