Random row selection in Pandas dataframe

Is there a way to select random rows from a DataFrame in Pandas.

In R, using the car package, there is a useful function some(x, n) which is similar to head but selects, in this example, 10 rows at random from x.

I have also looked at the slicing documentation and there seems to be nothing equivalent.

Now using version 20. There is a sample method.

df.sample(n)

JavaScript
​x
 
df.sample(n)
​

Answer

Something like this?

import random

def some(x, n):
    return x.ix[random.sample(x.index, n)]

JavaScript
 
import random
​
def some(x, n):
    return x.ix[random.sample(x.index, n)]
​

Note: As of Pandas v0.20.0, ix has been deprecated in favour of loc for label based indexing.