From 065cba1281384de5ba18a2ed37d6761b8c788499 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Fred Drake Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 19:07:17 +0000 Subject: Added documentation for random.shuffle(). --- Doc/lib/librandom.tex | 17 +++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+) diff --git a/Doc/lib/librandom.tex b/Doc/lib/librandom.tex index 15ed69c..54bca0f 100644 --- a/Doc/lib/librandom.tex +++ b/Doc/lib/librandom.tex @@ -88,6 +88,23 @@ Weibull distribution. \var{alpha} is the scale parameter and \var{beta} is the shape parameter. \end{funcdesc} + +This function does not represent a specific distribution, but +implements a standard useful algorithm: + +\begin{funcdesc}{shuffle}{x\optional{, random}} +Shuffle the sequence \var{x} in place. +The optional argument \var{random} is a 0-argument function returning +a random float in [0.0, 1.0); by default, this is the function +\function{random()}. + +Note that for even rather small \code{len(\var{x})}, the total number +of permutations of \var{x} is larger than the period of most random +number generators; this implies that most permutations of a long +sequence can never be generated. +\end{funcdesc} + + \begin{seealso} \seemodule{whrandom}{The standard Python random number generator.} \end{seealso} -- cgit v0.12