From Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk>  Tue Jan 18 15:33:40 2000
From: Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> (Prof Brian Ripley)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 15:33:40 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: RNG initialization
Message-ID: <200001181533.PAA25043@toucan.stats.ox.ac.uk>

> Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 10:26:26 -0500
> From: Paul Gilbert <pgilbert@bank-banque-canada.ca>
> 
> >Since set.seed seems a suitable name and it would help compatibility,
> >would
> >set.seed(seed, kind = 0)
> >be a suitable interface?  Or would people prefer
> >RNGinit(kind, seed)
> 
> Before making too many changes to random number generation it might be useful 
to
> look at the code below which is part of my syskern package. It sets the seed,

As I understand it, that does not do what either S-PLUS's set.seed does
or what Ben asks for, as the seed has to be of a length and values
appropriate to the RNGkind.  The request was to use a single value:
otherwise why not just assign to .Random.seed?  

Personally I do not like the altering of system functions in user
packages, as what happens if two or more people do it? It depends
on the load order.


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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RNG initialization
Prof Brian Ripley