sample(slenreturns sequence lengthlencontaining elements chosen randomly from the sequence the elements in the resulting sequence are placed in the order in which they were selected shuffle( [,random]randomly shuffles the items in the list in place random is an optional argument that specifies random generation function if suppliedit must be function that takes no arguments and returns floating-point number in the range [ real-valued random distributions the following functions generate random numbers on real numbers distribution and parameter names correspond to the standard names used in probability and statistics you will need to consult an appropriate text to find out more details random(returns random number in the range [ uniform( ,breturns uniformly distributed random number in the range [abbetavariate(alphabetareturns value between and from the beta distribution alpha - and beta - cunifvariate(meanarccircular uniform distribution mean is the mean angleand arc is the range of the distributioncentered around the mean angle both of these values must be specified in radians in the range between and pi returned values are in the range (mean arc/ mean arc/ expovariate(lambdexponential distribution lambd is divided by the desired mean returns values in the range [ +infinitygammavariate(alphabetagamma distribution alpha - beta gauss(musigmagaussian distribution with mean mu and standard deviation sigma slightly faster than normalvariate(lognormvariate(musigmalog normal distribution taking the natural logarithm of this distribution results in normal distribution with mean mu and standard deviation sigma normalvariate(musigmanormal distribution with mean mu and standard deviation sigma lib fl ff