A bug: The function random.randint(a,b) include both ends i.e. b is also included. Thus for file with single line a=0,b=1 my algo will give an IndexError.
Significance of number 4096 : file is stored in blocks of size 2K/4K/8K (depending upon the machine). file seek for an offset goes block by block rather than byte by byte. Hence for file size < 4096 (assuming you have 4K block size), you will anyway end up scanning it entirely so as well load it up in memory. Luke suggestion for Index: I think its an implicit need to give equal probability to each line. Taking an example - suppose we are trying to find "quote of the day" from a dictionary of quotations which may contain 100s of thousands of quotes. We would like to see a new one each time on invocation rather than favour the longest one. So, creating an index is the right solution. But I just want to add that since index creation is quite a laborious task (in terms of CPU/time) one should do it only once (or till file is changed). Thus it should be kept on disk and ensure that index is re-created in case file changes. I would like suggestions on index creation. --- Luke Paireepinart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > bhaaluu wrote: > > Greetings, > > Thanks for including the complete source code! > > It really helps to have something that works to > look at. > > I modified an earlier version of this to run on my > > computer (GNU/Linux; Python 2.4.3). > > > I think the best strategy for this problem would be > to build an index of > the offset of the start of each line, and then > randomly select from this > list. > that makes each line equally probable, and you can > set up your class so > that the index is only built on the first call to > the function. > -Luke > > _______________________________________________ > Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/ _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
