Nov. 3, 2009
11:21 p.m.
Guido van Rossum <guido <at> python.org> writes:
You're obviously talking about a *random* element. This is a separate use case (though I agree many people don't know the difference).
Picking a random element can be done in O(1) only if the data structure supports access by index, which Python's hash tables don't.
Well, at the implementation level, they can. You'd just have to pick a new random index until it points to a non-empty slot. Regards Antoine.