Monte Carlo Python Program

monte_carlo.py

"""Run a Monte Carlo simulation to validate the lottery example."""

import random

from lottery import winner, PEOPLE

def simulate(runs, f=winner, arg=PEOPLE):
    """Simulate function f with argument arg with number of given runs."""
    # Store the number of results in a dict.
    result_counts = {} # this is a dict
    # Initialize the result counter.
    for a in arg:
        result_counts[a] = 0

    for run in xrange(runs):
        result = f(arg)
        result_counts[result] += 1
    return result_counts

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # random.seed(0)
    total_runs = 100000
    people_counts = simulate(total_runs)
    for k,v in people_counts.items():
        print "%s: %d (%.02f%%)" % (k, v, (v / float(total_runs) * 100))

I do not recall the context, 12 years later, of why I saved this as a gist.