Generate random numbers with a given (numerical) distribution

Question

I have a file with some probabilities for different values e.g.:

1 0.1
2 0.05
3 0.05
4 0.2
5 0.4
6 0.2

I would like to generate random numb

Answer 1

I wrote a solution for drawing random samples from a custom continuous distribution.

I needed this for a similar use-case to yours (i.e. generating random dates with a given probability distribution).

You just need the funtion random_custDist and the line samples=random_custDist(x0,x1,custDist=custDist,size=1000). The rest is decoration ^^.

import numpy as np

#funtion
def random_custDist(x0,x1,custDist,size=None, nControl=10**6):
    #genearte a list of size random samples, obeying the distribution custDist
    #suggests random samples between x0 and x1 and accepts the suggestion with probability custDist(x)
    #custDist noes not need to be normalized. Add this condition to increase performance. 
    #Best performance for max_{x in [x0,x1]} custDist(x) = 1
    samples=[]
    nLoop=0
    while len(samples)=0 and prop<=1
        if np.random.uniform(low=0,high=1) <=prop:
            samples += [x]
        nLoop+=1
    return samples

#call
x0=2007
x1=2019
def custDist(x):
    if x<2010:
        return .3
    else:
        return (np.exp(x-2008)-1)/(np.exp(2019-2007)-1)
samples=random_custDist(x0,x1,custDist=custDist,size=1000)
print(samples)

#plot
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
#hist
bins=np.linspace(x0,x1,int(x1-x0+1))
hist=np.histogram(samples, bins )[0]
hist=hist/np.sum(hist)
plt.bar( (bins[:-1]+bins[1:])/2, hist, width=.96, label='sample distribution')
#dist
grid=np.linspace(x0,x1,100)
discCustDist=np.array([custDist(x) for x in grid]) #distrete version
discCustDist*=1/(grid[1]-grid[0])/np.sum(discCustDist)
plt.plot(grid,discCustDist,label='custom distribustion (custDist)', color='C1', linewidth=4)
#decoration
plt.legend(loc=3,bbox_to_anchor=(1,0))
plt.show()

The performance of this solution is improvable for sure, but I prefer readability.