Syntax to call random function from a list [duplicate]

Answer 1

Firstly, when you do my_list = [func_test_1(), func_test_2(), func_test_3()] you store function results, not functions in the list. Do my_list = [func_test_1, func_test_2, func_test_3] instead and then call random function. Like this:

my_list = [func_test_1, func_test_2, func_test_3]
random.choice(my_list)()

Answer 2

With the parentheses you call the function. What you want is assigning them to the list and call the choice later:

my_list = [func_test_1, func_test_2, func_test_3]
random.choice(my_list)()

Answer 3

Functions are objects in Python.

If you refer to them just by their name (without the parentheses, which do actually call the function!), you refer to the underlying function objects. You can re-bind them, inspect them .. or store a reference to them in a list.

mylist = [test_func_1,test_func_2,..]

At this point, none of the functions has been executed. You can then use random.choice to pick a function from the list and invoke it using ():

• mylist[0]() calls the first function in the list
• random.choice(mylist)() calls a random function