How to remove a random element from a list and add it to another list in python

Question

list = ['john','james','michael','david','william']

winner = []

How can I remove a random item from list and add it to winner?

Answer 1

winner.append(list.pop(random.randrange(0,len(list))))

To break this down:

random.randrange(0,len(list)) 

will generate a random number between zero and the length of your list inclusive. This will generate a random index in your list that you can reference.

list.pop(i)

This will remove the item at the specified index (i) from your list.

winner.append(x)

This will add an item (x) to the end of the winner list. If you want to add the item at a specific index, you can use

winner.insert(i,x) 

with i being the index to insert at and x being the value to insert.

If you want more information, a good reference is the python docs on data structures: https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/datastructures.html