Randomly placing items in a list of lists in Python

Question

I'm a beginner at using Python and I've been trying to code a Minesweeper game. Basically, I'm a bit lost on how to set up my class so that it creates a 5x5 grid of cells using a list of lists, then randomly places 3 mines on this grid, and counts the number of mines in each cell's neighborhood.

I figured I would use an __init__ method that would call on two other methods: one for placing the mines, and another for counting each cell's neighborhood.

I'm a bit lost on how to set those up though so any suggestions?

Answer 1

Here's a little code to get you started:

>>> import random
>>> cells = [['empty'] * 5 for i in range(5)]
>>> for i in range(3):
        x = random.randrange(5)
        y = random.randrange(5)
        cells[x][y] = 'mine'


>>> import pprint
>>> pprint.pprint(cells)
[['empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty'],
 ['mine', 'empty', 'mine', 'empty', 'empty'],
 ['empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'mine'],
 ['empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty'],
 ['empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty', 'empty']]