Unsorting(randomizing) a sequence

[Tim Peters]

[Jeremy Hylton]
> I've rather fond of the following approach:
>
> import random
>
> def randomize(a, b):
>     return random.choice([-1, 0, 1])
> ...
> No idea how fast this is, though not very I expect.

def test(N):
    d = {}
    for i in xrange(N * 6):
        x = range(3)
        x.sort(randomize)
        t = tuple(x)
        d[t] = d.get(t, 0) + 1
    print N, d

test(1000)

1000 {(2, 1, 0): 68,
      (0, 2, 1): 625,
      (0, 1, 2): 4443,
      (2, 0, 1): 289,
      (1, 2, 0): 155,
      (1, 0, 2): 420}

With a chi square busting distribution like that, I'm not sure speed is the
first thing you should be worried about <wink>.

a-random-decision-may-not-yield-a-random-outcome-ly y'rs  - tim