Python: How to generate a random array only consisting of a specific number of -1, 0, 1?

Question

Is there a standard way in Python to generate an array (of size 15), where precisely three 1s and four -1s are placed randomly and the remaining array entries are 0?

An example for such an array would be

0 0 0 0 1 1 0 -1 1 -1 -1 0 0 0 -1

Answer 1

Using random.sample:

from random import sample
array = sample([1, -1, 0], 15, counts=[3, 4, 8])
print(array)

Note that counts argument requires Python 3.9.

Using random.shuffle:

from random import shuffle
array = 3 * [1] + 4 * [-1] + 8 * [0]
shuffle(array)
print(array)

Example output:

[0, -1, 0, 0, 1, -1, -1, 0, 0, 0, -1, 1, 0, 0, 1]