ExampleEdit & Run

Use the sample() Function

#import the random module
import random

#The sequence to sample
my_seq = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

#get a sample of 4 elements
print(random.sample(my_seq, 4))
 Visualize 
copy
Output:
[8, 2, 7, 4]
[Finished in 0.012383087072521448s]

The sample() function in the random module  generates a unique random sample of elements from a sequence/population. 

Syntax: 
sample(seq, k = 5, counts = None)
copy
seq Required. A sequence of objects like lists, tuples, strings, etc, from which to draw the samples
k Required. An integer that indicates the length of the sample to draw from the population.
counts Optional. Specifies the number of times each item in the sequence should be sampled
Parameters:

The function returns a list containing k random and unique elements drawn from the sequence. The original sequence remains unchanged.

ExampleEdit & Run

Get a sample of elements from  a population of integers between 0 and 100

#import the random module
import random

data = range(100)

sample = random.sample(data, 10)

print(sample)
 Visualize 
copy
Output:
[82, 7, 91, 87, 19, 50, 96, 64, 25, 21]
[Finished in 0.011373501271009445s]
ExampleEdit & Run

with a tuple

#import the random module
import random

data = (0.1, 0.4, 0.2, 0.3, 0.0, 0.5, 0.2, 0.4, 0.1)

sample = random.sample(data, 3)

print(sample)
 Visualize 
copy
Output:
[0.2, 0.0, 0.1]
[Finished in 0.011600900907069445s]

The k argument should always be positive and smaller than the total number of elements in the original sequence. Otherwise, a ValueError will be raised.

ExampleEdit & Run

A ValueError is raised if k is greater than the length of the original sequence

#import the random module
import random

data = [1, 2, 3]

#Raises an erro because the defaultk is greater than the length of the sequence
sample = random.sample(data, 5)

print(sample)
 Visualize 
copy
Output:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 7, in <module>
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.11/random.py", line 456, in sample
    raise ValueError("Sample larger than population or is negative")
ValueError: Sample larger than population or is negative

[Finished in 0.011581166181713343s]

You should also note that sets and dictionaries are not sequences, since their elements are unordered. We should first cast such types into a sequence type such as a list or a tuple before sampling their elements. Passing non-sequence objects will result in an error being raised.

ExampleEdit & Run
import random

data = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}

sample = random.sample(data, 3)

print(sample)
 Visualize 
copy
Output:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 5, in <module>
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python3.11/random.py", line 439, in sample
    raise TypeError("Population must be a sequence.  "
TypeError: Population must be a sequence.  For dicts or sets, use sorted(d).

[Finished in 0.011974309105426073s]
ExampleEdit & Run

First cast set elements to a list before sampling them

import random

data = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}

#cast the set to a list
data = list(data)

sample = random.sample(data, 3)

print(sample)
 Visualize 
copy
Output:
[3, 2, 7]
[Finished in 0.011077523231506348s]