[Python-Dev] a note in random.shuffle.doc ... (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Wed Jun 14 02:45:29 CEST 2006

Dan Christensen wrote:

I think Terry's point is valid. While no one call to random.shuffle(L) can produce every possible ordering of L (when len(L) is large), since random.shuffle shuffle's the data in place, repeated calls to random.shuffle(L) could in principle produce every possible ordering,

But how do you decide how many times to shuffle before dealing the cards? If you pull that number out of your RNG, then you're back in the same boat. If you get it from somewhere else, the RNG is no longer the only thing determining the result.

-- Greg

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