Selecting Randomly within an Array

Question

Given an array x = [2,3,5,4,1,7,4,2,8] I am looking to create a second array y which is a length p and consists of a random election of the elements within x. Is there an easier way other than doing the following

x = [2,3,5,4,1,7,4,2,8]
random.shuffle(x)
p = 5
y = x[0:p]
print y 

Answer 1

Use random.sample:

x = [2,3,5,4,1,7,4,2,8]
y = random.sample(x, p)