Get a random boolean in python?

Question

I am looking for the best way (fast and elegant) to get a random boolean in python (flip a coin).

For the moment I am using random.randint(0, 1) or random.getrandbits(1).

Are there better choices that I am not aware of?

Answer 1

Adam's answer is quite fast, but I found that random.getrandbits(1) to be quite a lot faster. If you really want a boolean instead of a long then

bool(random.getrandbits(1))

is still about twice as fast as random.choice([True, False])

Both solutions need to import random

If utmost speed isn't to priority then random.choice definitely reads better

$ python -m timeit -s "import random" "random.choice([True, False])"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.904 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s "import random" "random.choice((True, False))" 
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.846 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s "import random" "random.getrandbits(1)"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.286 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s "import random" "bool(random.getrandbits(1))"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.441 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s "import random" "not random.getrandbits(1)"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.308 usec per loop
$ python -m timeit -s "from random import getrandbits" "not getrandbits(1)"
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.262 usec per loop  # not takes about 20us of this

Added this one after seeing @Pavel's answer

$ python -m timeit -s "from random import random" "random() < 0.5"
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.115 usec per loop