Select 50 items from list at random

by

If the list is in random order, you can just take the first 50.

Otherwise, use

import random
random.sample(the_list, 50)

random.sample help text:

sample(self, population, k) method of random.Random instance
    Chooses k unique random elements from a population sequence.
    
    Returns a new list containing elements from the population while
    leaving the original population unchanged.  The resulting list is
    in selection order so that all sub-slices will also be valid random
    samples.  This allows raffle winners (the sample) to be partitioned
    into grand prize and second place winners (the subslices).
    
    Members of the population need not be hashable or unique.  If the
    population contains repeats, then each occurrence is a possible
    selection in the sample.
    
    To choose a sample in a range of integers, use xrange as an argument.
    This is especially fast and space efficient for sampling from a
    large population:   sample(xrange(10000000), 60)

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