how to generate permutations of array in python?

Question

i have an array of 27 elements,and i don't want to generate all permutations of array (27!) i need 5000 randomly choosed permutations,any tip will be useful...

Answer 1

To generate one permutation use random.shuffle and store a copy of the result. Repeat this operation in a loop and each time check for duplicates (there probably won't be any though). Once you have 5000 items in your result set, stop.

To address the point in the comment, Python's random module is based on the Mersenne Twister and has a period of 2**19937-1, which is considerably larger than 27! so it should be suitable for your use.