Python help ---> random name selection from text file

Question

I want to have a list of names such as "john, jack, daniels, whisky, susan, alex" in a .txt file called 'names'.

Now, I want to import that file into my 'script' and use the import random module.

This is what I have:

import random

name = ( "jay" , "luis" , "bob" , "sofi", "susan" ) 

x = random.sample(name,input( "please enter the number of volunteers needed" ))
print x

instead of having name = ( xxxxxxxxxxxxx ), I want to have name = .txt file.

Everytime i want to change the names I can just change it in the .txt file.

I'm trying to make a program for my schools volunteer club, so the number of volunteers chosen is at random and not biased. That way everyone has a somewhat fair chance. :]

Welcome to Stack Overflow! You really need to google some basic python tutorials (eg penzilla.net/tutorials/python/fileio ) just open the file read it in and split the lines by ",". OR read: stackoverflow.com/questions/6136154/csv-file-read-in-python — James Khoury
– James Khoury, Commented Sep 13, 2011 at 2:13

Adam Lear · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-13 02:12:11Z

3

file = open('myFile.txt', 'r')
names = file.read().split(',')
file.close()

Use that in place of your name = ... line and you should be good to go.

You can read more about reading and writing files in Python here.

Note that I assumed you'll have a comma-delimited list in the file. You can also put each name on a separate line and do names = file.readlines() instead.

answered Sep 13, 2011 at 2:12

Adam Lear♦

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Matt Sweeney · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-13 02:20:23Z

2

welcome to python :-]

how about something like this?

import random
fid = open('names.txt', 'r')
names = fid.readlines()

number_needed = raw_input('please enter the number of volunteers needed: ')

print random.sample(names, int(number_needed))

answered Sep 13, 2011 at 2:20

Matt Sweeney

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Zach Kelling · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-13 02:10:57Z

1

You could simply fill a text file with names delimited by line:

with open('names.txt') as f:
    names = f.read().splitlines()

answered Sep 13, 2011 at 2:10

Zach Kelling

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James Felix Black · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-13 02:18:49Z

0

Assuming a list of names in names.txt, one per line (and that you don't have a hundred million names in there):

import random
number_of_volunteers = 4
print random.sample([n[:-1] for n in open("./names.txt").readlines()], number_of_volunteers)

answered Sep 13, 2011 at 2:18

James Felix Black

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user688635 · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-13 02:58:04Z

0

Where:

$ cat rand_nms.txt
jay
luis
bob
sofi

Then:

import random

contents=[]

with open("rand_nms.txt") as rnd:
    for line in rnd:
        line=line.strip()
        contents.append(line)

print contents
print "random name:", contents[random.randint(0,len(contents)-1)]

Result:

['jay', 'luis', 'bob', 'sofi', 'susan']
random name: luis

answered Sep 13, 2011 at 2:58

user688635

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