must be real number, not NoneType

Question

Im just messing around in python since im learning at the moment.

Im checking the NIST randomness beacon, and im parsing for the output, removing all letters and using it as a seed to generate random numbers, I append those to an array and save the array to a file but Im getting an error.

import numpy as np
import array as arr
import random
import urllib.request
import urllib.parse
import re

url = 'https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/pulse/last'
f = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
data_set = str(f.read().decode('utf-8'))

#print(data_set)
#print(subStr)
#print(type(subStr))

subStr = data_set


subStr = re.findall(r'"outputValue" : "(.+?)"',data_set)
print(subStr)
print(type(subStr))
subStr  = ''.join(subStr)
print(type(subStr))
NIST_SEED = ''.join(filter(str.isdigit, subStr))
print(NIST_SEED)
NIST_SEED = float(NIST_SEED)


numbers = arr.array('d', [])
#print(numbers)

i = 0


for i in range(10):
#    randon_number = random.random()
    random_number = random.seed(NIST_SEED)
    numbers.extend([random_number])
print(numbers)


np.savetxt('data.out', numbers)

Im getting this error, I don't understand why im getting this since the "seed" is a float. Im trying to understand the error.

  File "generating_data.py", line 38, in <module>
    numbers.extend([random_number]) 
TypeError: must be real number, not NoneType

EDIT:

Im an absolute newbie in python and I have no idea about software development. Im just writing stuff to test things out and to understand concepts. The idea behind this was to try a few different things out and to write a script that is generating CPU load so that I can learn about multithreading or example. This might be a stupid way to do it and It might not even teach me anything idk yet.

`random.seed()` seeds a random generator, and doesn't return anything. You need to actually generate random number with `random.random()` — clubby789, Jan 22 '20 at 10:18
You can input a number into random.seed(555) and it will generate a "random" number using that seed. Im trying to input a number that is a float. — dev, Jan 22 '20 at 10:20
@dev ***It*** refers to random module, but the way to generate is `random.random()` https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22639587/random-seed-what-does-it-do — Ray, Jan 22 '20 at 10:21
The docs (https://docs.python.org/3/library/random.html#random.seed) do not specify that `seed()` returns anything. If you run `print(random.seed(5))` alone, you will see that it returns None. — clubby789, Jan 22 '20 at 10:23

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 22 '20 at 10:24

1

random_number = random.seed(NIST_SEED)
for i in range(10):
    random_number = random.random()
    numbers.extend([random_number])

This will seed your random number generator, then use random.random() to generate the actual random numbers.

answered Jan 22 '20 at 10:24

clubby789

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must be real number, not NoneType

1 Answers1