At Brian Wichmann's request, added words warning against
using the old Wichmann-Hill generator, Also pointed to a newer version of his generator, and weakened the claim about what jumpahead() does now. Note sure I got the LaTeX entirely correct for \seeurl. If it's broken, please fix it ;-) Bugfix candidate! (These changes make just as much sense for 2.4.)
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@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ hidden instance of the \class{random.Random} class. You can
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instantiate your own instances of \class{Random} to get generators
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that don't share state. This is especially useful for multi-threaded
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programs, creating a different instance of \class{Random} for each
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thread, and using the \method{jumpahead()} method to ensure that the
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thread, and using the \method{jumpahead()} method to make it likely that the
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generated sequences seen by each thread don't overlap.
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Class \class{Random} can also be subclassed if you want to use a
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@ -47,10 +47,14 @@ over an arbitrarily large range.
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\versionadded[the \method{getrandombits()} method]{2.4}
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As an example of subclassing, the \module{random} module provides
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the \class{WichmannHill} class which implements an alternative generator
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the \class{WichmannHill} class that implements an alternative generator
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in pure Python. The class provides a backward compatible way to
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reproduce results from earlier versions of Python which used the
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Wichmann-Hill algorithm as the core generator.
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reproduce results from earlier versions of Python, which used the
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Wichmann-Hill algorithm as the core generator. Note that this Wichmann-Hill
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generator can no longer be recommended: its period is too short by
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contemporary standards, and the sequence generated is known to fail some
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stringent randomness tests. See the references below for a recent
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variant that repairs these flaws.
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\versionchanged[Substituted MersenneTwister for Wichmann-Hill]{2.3}
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@ -273,4 +277,9 @@ called.
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\seetext{Wichmann, B. A. \& Hill, I. D., ``Algorithm AS 183:
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An efficient and portable pseudo-random number generator'',
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\citetitle{Applied Statistics} 31 (1982) 188-190.}
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\seeurl{http://www.npl.co.uk/ssfm/download/abstracts.html#196}{A modern
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variation of the Wichmann-Hill generator that greatly increases
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the period, and passes now-standard statistical tests that the
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original generator failed.}
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\end{seealso}
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