alphabet = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', ...]
wantedSubset = random.sample(alphabet, 5)You can make a one element list, with the letter you want in there, and then append it with random stuff. Make sure wanted element is not there twice (if you don't want it there twice).
This would have the problem that the wanted element might appear twice.
So is there a way to take a sample from a list, such that the sample won't contain a specific element?
Also if I do it this way, assuming there is a way to generate a sample that doesn't contain a specific element, I then have to insert the wanted element randomly into the sample.
This seems like a very convoluted approach.
Well that's how I've been doing it. What I don't like is that I have to take extra steps to re-insert that element into the sub-sample so that it's in a random location.
And just appending it then scrambling the sample seems wasteful since generating the sample already involved a permutation in the first place.
Is deleting wanted element, taking sub sample of remainder of list, appending wanted element to sub sample, and scrambling the sub sample really the best way to do it?
The way I'm appending it now is:
permuList.insert(randrange(len(permuList)+1), element)
If you know the index of c, you could do something like this:
wantedSubset = random.sample(alphabet[:indexOfElement] + alphabet[indexOfElement+1:], 4)
wantedSubset.insert(randomIndex, alphabet[indexOfElement])
I doubt you're gonna get anything much simpler than that. This isn't really a common sort of operation, so there's not likely to be a magic function that just does it.
