Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Python Basics (2015) Letter Game App Random Item

Posted by Kadarius WALLACE
Kadarius WALLACE
2,332 Points

How do you recreate random.choice()?

This is the only challenge I haven’t answered from “Python Basics.” For some reason this is the most challenging to me.

item.py 
# EXAMPLE
# random_item("Treehouse")
# The randomly selected number is 4.
# The return value would be "h"
import random
def random_item(iterable):
    random_number = random.randint(0,len(iterable-1))
    if iterable[{}.format(random_number)] == random_number:
        return iterable[{}.format(random_number)]

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points

You're working to hard! Once you have the random number, just return the result of using it as an index on the iterable. No conditional or formatting needed.

behar
behar
10,799 Points
behar
behar
10,799 Points

Not sure why your trying to format the random number, perhaps you should read the challenge again. It just wants you to return the character at a random index, an index that is sellected randomly by the generator, that is between 0 and len(itr) - 1.. Your code should look something like this:

import random
def random_item(itr):
    char = random.randint(0, len(itr) - 1)
    return itr[char]