Question

I did some research before posting but seem to be at a lost (not too experienced in coding).

I am attempting to generate or compute a random number for certain time interval with Python. I’m not looking for full code, I want help using the time library if that is the correct one to use.

Pseudo-code:

Allow python [PC] to compute a random number for 3 seconds

——> Store the computed generation in a value (i can handle this)

I would then use the random generated value to link access a python list (which would be automatically generated via a random number generation as well but i can figure that out).

Answer 1

I’m not sure why you want to do this, but here’s how to compute many random numbers, throwing most of them away, and then using the last one after 3 seconds have elapsed.

import random
import time

start = time.clock()
while time.clock() - start < 3:
    random_number = random.randint(0,100)

print random_number

This pointlessly throws away about 2 million perfectly good random numbers on my machine.

(And, as abarnert points out, this also maxes out one CPU core for the whole 3 seconds in a busy loop, which is very, very wasteful, but I thinks it’s what you were asking for?)

EDIT: Updated to use time.clock instead of time.time, as suggested by abarnert again (thanks), because this seems to give better resolution across platforms and doesn’t suffer from problems when the system time is altered in the middle of the program running.