How to Generate Random Numbers in Python

John on September 20, 2020

Sometimes you will need to generate random numbers in Python. Fortunately, Python has a native package called random, which can be used to generate numbers at random easily.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to use the random Python package to get random boolean values and random numbers from different ranges of numbers.

Import the Package

The first step is to import the native random Python package that will allow us to generate numbers easily.

import random

Generate Random Boolean

We can generate random boolean values by using the random.random() method. This method generates random floating-point numbers between 0 and 1. Finally to get a whole number, round the float to the nearest integer by using the round() function.

boolean = round(random.random())

print(boolean)

0

Generate Random Numbers in a Range

To get random integers from a range, use the random.randint() method, passing the lowest possible number as the first argument and the highest as the second.

integer = random.randint(0,10)

print(integer)

6

In the example above we are getting a random integer between 0 and 10.

Generate a List of Random Numbers

To generate a list of random numbers from a range, create an empty list followed by a for loop that on each iteration will generate a random number before appending it to the list.

for i in range(0,10):
    integer = random.randint(10,20)
    numbers.append(integer)
    
print(numbers)

[16, 12, 16, 17, 17, 15, 14, 13, 16, 18]

The sample() Method

We can generate a list of random numbers in a cleaner way by using the random.sample() method. The first argument is the range of random numbers to select from and the second is the number of samples to get.

number_list = random.sample(range(1, 100), 5)

print(number_list)

[12, 68, 47, 92, 74]

Conclusion

You now know how to generate random numbers in several different ways in Python using the random package.