Randomly replace certain words in python using a dictionary-CodePudding

Does anybody know how to modify this script so that it randomly changes the words when it finds them.

i.e not every instance of "Bear" becomes "Snake"

    # A program to read a file and replace words

    word_replacement = {'Bear':'Snake', 'John':'Karen', 'Bird':'Owl'}

    with open("main.txt") as main:
        words = main.read().split()

    replaced = []
    for y in words:
        replacement = word_replacement.get(y, y)
        replaced.append(replacement)
    text = ' '.join(replaced)


    print (text)

    new_main = open("main.txt", 'w')
    new_main.write(text)
    new_main.close()

Thank you in advance

CodePudding user response：

One approach is to randomly decide to apply the replacement:

import random
replacement = word_replacement.get(y, y) if random.random() > 0.5 else y

In the example above it will change "Bear" to "Snake" (or any other words in word_replacement) with a ~0.5 probability. You can change the value to your desire randomness.

Putting all together:

# A program to read a file and replace words
import random

word_replacement = {'Bear': 'Snake', 'John': 'Karen', 'Bird': 'Owl'}

with open("main.txt") as main:
    words = main.read().split()

    replaced = []
    for y in words:
        replacement = word_replacement.get(y, y) if random.random() > 0.5 else y
        replaced.append(replacement)
    text = ' '.join(replaced)
    print(text)

with open("main.txt", 'w') as outfile:
    outfile.write(text)

Output (for Bear Bear Bear as main.txt)

Snake Bear Bear