Creating a probability distribution using Numpy in Python3.6

Question

I’m trying to create a probability distribution using Numpy in the following way:

x = 3
pat = [0.20, 0.30, 1.30]
z = numpy.random.choice(x, p=numpy.ndarray.tolist(numpy.array(pat)/sum(pat)))

And this works fine. The problem is that my “population” is evolving and starts at 0, meaning that this may happen:

x = 3
pat = [0, 0, 0]
z = numpy.random.choice(x, p=numpy.ndarray.tolist(numpy.array(pat)/sum(pat)))

At which point, python is dividing by 0 and returns an error. Is there anyway to create a probability distribution of this kind?

Asked By: GWasp

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Answer 1

You can use simple if/else for the edge case:

if sum(pat) != 0:
    z = numpy.random.choice(x, p=numpy.ndarray.tolist(numpy.array(pat)/sum(pat)))
else:
    z = numpy.random.choice(x)

Answered By: taras

Answer 2

In one line it will look like this:

z = numpy.random.choice(x, p=numpy.ndarray.tolist(numpy.array(pat)/sum(pat))) if any(pat) else numpy.random.choice(x)

Answered By: zipa

Answer 3

Using python function to find the probability distribution where
Sum(pijlog(pin) – sum(pi(log(pi) -sum(on(log(pj))

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