Shuffling a list of objects

Question

I have a list of objects and I want to shuffle them. I thought I could use the random.shuffle method, but this seems to fail when the list is of objects. Is the

Answer 1

As you learned the in-place shuffling was the problem. I also have problem frequently, and often seem to forget how to copy a list, too. Using sample(a, len(a)) is the solution, using len(a) as the sample size. See https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/random.html#random.sample for the Python documentation.

Here's a simple version using random.sample() that returns the shuffled result as a new list.

import random

a = range(5)
b = random.sample(a, len(a))
print a, b, "two list same:", a == b
# print: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4] [2, 1, 3, 4, 0] two list same: False

# The function sample allows no duplicates.
# Result can be smaller but not larger than the input.
a = range(555)
b = random.sample(a, len(a))
print "no duplicates:", a == list(set(b))

try:
    random.sample(a, len(a) + 1)
except ValueError as e:
    print "Nope!", e

# print: no duplicates: True
# print: Nope! sample larger than population