generate categorical dataset in python

Question

Suppose I have a list of ten cities :

["paris", "barcelona", "kolkata", "new york"]

How can I simulate n random datasets of two attributes each having 2 cities selected from the above list:

["paris", "barcelona"]
["barcelona", "kolata"]
["new york", "paris"]
["paris", "barcelona"]
["new york", "paris"]

Answer 1

You can use random.sample like this

data = ["paris", "barcelona", "kolkata", "new york"]
import random
print [random.sample(data, 2) for _ in xrange(5)]