shuffle string in python

Question

I am looking for a function or short program that recieves a string (up to 10 letters) and shuffles it.
thanks Ariel

Answer 1

There is a function shuffle in the random module. Note that it shuffles in-place so you first have to convert your string to a list of characters, shuffle it, then join the result again.

import random
l = list(s)
random.shuffle(l)
result = ''.join(l)

Answer 2

>>> import random
>>> s="abcdef123"
>>> ''.join(random.sample(s,len(s)))
'1f2bde3ac'

Answer 3

An alternate take for shuffling a string:

# Python < 3
import random, array

def shuffle_text(text):
    if isinstance(text, unicode):
        temp= array.array('u', text)
        converter= temp.tounicode
    else:
        temp= array.array('c', text)
        converter= temp.tostring
    random.shuffle(temp)
    return converter()

I added this answer just for completeness' sake; on my slow home server, it is faster for small input strings (but the difference is very small), while it is slower for larger strings.