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Re: generating random numbers -- what seeds to use?


From: Dirk Eddelbuettel
Subject: Re: generating random numbers -- what seeds to use?
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 20:59:39 -0500
User-agent: Mutt/1.3.28i

On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 08:03:41PM -0500, John W. Eaton wrote:
> On 27-Apr-2003, Mike Miller <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> | I need to create large amounts of random data under a certain model.  I
> | wanted to produce 10,000 files, so I set 10 different processors to the
> | task of executing an octave scrit that would make 1,000 files.
> | Unfortunately, I forgot that some of the jobs were starting at nearly the
> | same moment, so they took the same seed from the clock and produced the
> | same 'random' files!
> | 
> | I'd still like to run 10 jobs at once, but I'll have to supply initial
> | seeds.  Is there any way that I can guarantee that I won't produce the
> | same file twice?  What is the best way to choose seeds?  What is the
> | period for Octave's random number generator?  Has anyone developed other
> | random number generators for Octave?
> 
> Why not generate all the random numbers in advance?  For example, for
> N random numbers in each of M files, something like
> 
>   for i = 1:M
>     f = fopen (sprintf ("rnd-%d", i), "w");
>     fwrite (f, rand (N, 1), "double");
>     fclose (f);
>   endfor
> 
> Then you could read these files for your data generation processes.

Yep. And some more ideas:

- use a generator with more states than the n=10 you need here; one well known
  and tested example is ranlib from U Texas which has 32 virtual states that
  are all shielded; ranlib comes in C and Fortran flavour; see
  http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/Utexas/randlib.readme
  
- use an external random number, either for the entire sequence or for the 
  initialisation; http://random.org is a popular choice

Hth, Dirk

-- 
Don't drink and derive. Alcohol and algebra don't mix.



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