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| author | Raymond Hettinger <rhettinger@users.noreply.github.com> | 2019-01-30 13:30:20 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | GitHub <noreply@github.com> | 2019-01-30 13:30:20 -0800 |
| commit | 40ebe948e97b47fc84c8f527910063286a174b25 (patch) | |
| tree | 014b392a3e92fcb02dbafdb8080d06bc1bbc5a35 | |
| parent | cf991e653ac550a9f011631447c61ce583404a57 (diff) | |
| download | cpython-git-40ebe948e97b47fc84c8f527910063286a174b25.tar.gz | |
Document differences between random.choices() and random.choice(). (GH-11703)
| -rw-r--r-- | Doc/library/random.rst | 7 |
1 files changed, 7 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/random.rst b/Doc/library/random.rst index 4f251574a3..a543ff016a 100644 --- a/Doc/library/random.rst +++ b/Doc/library/random.rst @@ -162,6 +162,13 @@ Functions for sequences with the :class:`float` values returned by :func:`random` (that includes integers, floats, and fractions but excludes decimals). + For a given seed, the :func:`choices` function with equal weighting + typically produces a different sequence than repeated calls to + :func:`choice`. The algorithm used by :func:`choices` uses floating + point arithmetic for internal consistency and speed. The algorithm used + by :func:`choice` defaults to integer arithmetic with repeated selections + to avoid small biases from round-off error. + .. versionadded:: 3.6 |