[Tutor] Re: ...and another thing

[Charlie Clark]

>import random
>import string 
>cards=open('\windows\desktop\cards.txt','r')
>schmack=cards.readlines()
>counter=0
>while counter <3:
>	total_cards=len(schmack)
>	choose=random.randint(1,string.atoi(`total_cards`))
>	chosen=schmack[choose] 
>	del schmack[choose]
>	print chosen
>	counter=counter+1

mm, I'd rewrite this a little for legibility. What d-man has already said 
about the random function seems to cover most of the problem but I wonder why 
you are using 'while'. I think a 'for' construction would make more sense as 
it does the iterating for you so there is no need to count manually.

import random
file_in = open('\windows\desktop\cards.txt','r')
cards = file_in.readlines()
num_cards = len(cards)

for i in range(3):    #I think your first example would have been
                      #range(num_cards) to deal all the cards
    card = random.randint(0, num_cards)
    print cards[card]
    del demo[card]

Charlie (hopeless at programming but interested in style)