create_numbers_string.py

create_numbers_string.py

#! /bin/env/python3

'''
use:
    ```bash
    $ python3 create_numbers_string.py | pbcopy
    ```
    The second part after the pipe, pipes the stout directly into your clipboard on macOS.
    If not on macOS, omit the part after the pipe:
    ```bash
    $ python3 create_numbers_string.py
    ```

Motivation for this script:
    Brush up my scripting & quick clean code writing skills
    Noticed Codility allowed personal tests to be run via a DSL where 1 line is 1 test data.
        for the test i had this was a list of values
    But untractable to write really big queries of 1k+ values to test performance
        and no time to write this script during the time limit

note:
    i was curious to see if there was a functional alternative to
    `random.shuffle()` (ie. not in place) that was still performant
    found: `random.sample(x, len(x))`
    via url: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17649875/why-does-random-shuffle-return-none/17649901#17649901
    reservations: tbh i don't know if the shuffling quality and performance
        truly compare and are the same, but it isn't relevant for this task anyway
'''

import random

def main():

    ## change this variable here:
    numbers = list(range(-1000, 500, 40)) + \
              list(range(100, 200000, 33)) + \
              [ -1, 0, 3, 8, 99 ]

    numbers = random.sample(numbers, len(numbers)) ## shuffles with O(N) operations

    numbers = map(str, numbers)
    numbers_string = ', '.join(numbers)
    string = '[ {:s} ]'.format(numbers_string)

    return string


if __name__ == '__main__':

    string = main()
    print(string)