Generate Random Seed In Python

Question

Is there a way to generate random seed? something like this:

def random_seed(length)

output example:

3273650411015667511766

or is there a way to do both nums and letters? output example:

ryf65s4d4s6df54s6y4fs6f5b4y6s4fy

What do you mean by "seed"? It looks like what you want to ask is not what you are asking. — zvone
– zvone, Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 22:50
@PedroRodrigues while the question is poorly formulated, to my understanding it seems he wanted both random integers and strings so not really a duplicate of that question. — RMPR
– RMPR, Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 23:39
@RMPR there are a ton of different hashes in the answers to that question. This one, for example, looks pretty similar to the expected output the OP asked for. I guess you meant random ints and strings in the output. I am missing something? — Pedro Rodrigues
– Pedro Rodrigues, Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 23:42
OP, in case you aren't aware, "seed" usually refers to the input of an RNG. For some RNG implementations, it is possible to extract the seed from an existing RNG. Python's default RNG is a mersenne twister, which has some awkward problems if you try to use a human-sized seed. Other RNGs like PCG are better in a lot of ways (as long as you aren't doing crypto). — o11c
– o11c, Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 23:50

RMPR · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-19 23:37:14Z

3

For the integers:

import random 

def random_seed(length):
    random.seed()
    min = 10**(length-1)
    max = 9*min + (min-1)
    return random.randint(min, max)

For the strings, a naive approach may be:

import random

choices = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'

def random_char(pos):
   return random.choice(choices)

def random_seed(length):
  l = [None]*length
  random.seed()
  return "".join(list(map(random_char, l)))

Beware, this shouldn't be used for security purpose you must rely on os.urandom instead.

edited Oct 19, 2019 at 23:37

answered Oct 19, 2019 at 22:43

RMPR

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a_guest · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-19 22:59:46Z

2

You can use os.urandom. It let's you specify the number of random bytes you want to generate. Of course you can convert / interpret these bytes as whatever you like (integers, chars, ...). For example:

>>> import os
>>> os.urandom(16)
b'-\xca(\xd2\xf7 \xe3:\x8fj\x19#\xe0-\xb8X'

os.urandom will use the OS source of randomness (such as sensor values, etc). If you call random.seed() without arguments it will also fallback on OS randomness if available, otherwise the current system time.

Possible ways to interpret the bytes:

>>> int.from_bytes(os.urandom(16), 'big')
305697826269747251034239012950993064203

edited Oct 19, 2019 at 22:59

answered Oct 19, 2019 at 22:50

a_guest

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2 Comments

RMPR Over a year ago

An additional processing is required or am I missing something ?

a_guest Over a year ago

@RMPR Of course it is up to the user how to interpret those bytes (as numbers, chars, ...).

3NiGMa · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-19 22:37:21Z

1

this seems to work;

import random
length=random.randint(1,30)
chars=[char for char in '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz']
print(chars)
seed=''
for i in range(length): seed=seed+random.choice(chars)
print(seed)

answered Oct 19, 2019 at 22:37

3NiGMa

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