[Python-Dev] random.choice IndexError on empty list
Pete Shinners
pete at shinners.org
Thu Oct 23 16:22:59 EDT 2003
(this should potentialy go on sourceforge's bug tracker? alas i have
no account right now)
Another user and I were scratching our heads over why random.choice()
was raising "IndexError: list index out of range". For awhile we were
thinking random.random() must have been returning >= 1.0. It turns out
an empty list was being passed.
I would suggest either a ValueError is raised, or a different
exception message. perhaps more like the results of
>>> [].pop()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
IndexError: pop from empty list
The patch is trivial, but I can provide it if there is an agreed-apon
response.
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