topic Re: Random Selection of Attributes in Python Questions

Random Selection of Attributes

KarunaPaudel — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:20:04 GMT

I would like to know how to randomly select certain values from the attribute table.

MitchHolley1 — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:22:01 GMT

You can use the random module. Do you need random values in an attribute table? Or random rows?

KarunaPaudel — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:25:19 GMT

I need to use it from python and not from ArcMap. Also, I just need to select the attributes and not assign random numbers to it.

DanPatterson_Retired — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:10:56 GMT

Add a field to your table

Do a field calculation as described here

or you can substitute random.randint in place of random.random if you want integers.

a = random.randint(1, 100)

a
96‍‍‍‍

or even draw from a uniform distribution

u = int(random.uniform(0, 100))
u
54‍‍‍

or other types of distributions depending on your needs

MitchHolley1 — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:32:14 GMT

The random module is a Python module.... Do you need to select random attributes from a single field? All fields? Some fields?

Please expand on your question. Give an example.

DanPatterson_Retired — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:37:18 GMT

Ahhh, then generate your random integers, and use those in a search cursor to extract the values you need

JoshuaBixby — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:25:43 GMT

A good discussion along with several good code examples can be found in previous threads, including https://community.esri.com/thread/121745 .

KarunaPaudel — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 15:12:24 GMT

Thank you so much. This seems to work for me.