implement random selection in Python

[Paul Rubin]

Bruza <benruza at gmail.com> writes:
> But how about the general case, for N > 1 and N < len(items)? Is there
> some clever algorithm using Python standard "random" package

Yeah, I'm not sure what the name for it is, but there'ss a well known
algorithm that's sort of an online verison of random.choice.  The
famous N=1 example where all probabilities are equal goes:

    # choose a random element of seq
    for k,s in enumerate(seq):
       if random() < 1.0/(k+1):
          choice = s

you should be able to generalize this to N items with different
probabilities.