GSL Uniform Random Number Generator - random

Question

I want to use GSL's uniform random number generator. On their website, they include this sample code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <gsl/gsl_rng.h>
int
main (void)
{
const gsl_rng_type * T;
gsl_rng * r;
int i, n = 10;
gsl_rng_env_setup();
T = gsl_rng_default;
r = gsl_rng_alloc (T);
for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
double u = gsl_rng_uniform (r);
printf ("%.5f\n", u);
}
gsl_rng_free (r);
return 0;
}
However, this does not rely on any seed and so, the same random numbers will be produced each time.
They also specify the following:
The generator itself can be changed using the environment variable GSL_RNG_TYPE. Here is the output of the program using a seed value of 123 and the multiple-recursive generator mrg,
$ GSL_RNG_SEED=123 GSL_RNG_TYPE=mrg ./a.out
But I don't understand how to implement this. Any ideas as to what modifications I can make to the above code to incorporate the seed?

Answer 1

The problem is that a new seed is not being generated. If you just want a function that returns a darn random number, and care nothing about the sticky details of how it's generated, try this. Assumes that you have the GSL installed.
#include <iostream>
#include <gsl/gsl_math.h>
#include <gsl/gsl_rng.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
float keithRandom() {
// Random number function based on the GNU Scientific Library
// Returns a random float between 0 and 1, exclusive; e.g., (0,1)
const gsl_rng_type * T;
gsl_rng * r;
gsl_rng_env_setup();
struct timeval tv; // Seed generation based on time
gettimeofday(&tv,0);
unsigned long mySeed = tv.tv_sec + tv.tv_usec;
T = gsl_rng_default; // Generator setup
r = gsl_rng_alloc (T);
gsl_rng_set(r, mySeed);
double u = gsl_rng_uniform(r); // Generate it!
gsl_rng_free (r);
return (float)u;
}

Answer 2

Read 18.6 Random number environment variables to see what that gsl_rng_env_setup() function is doing. It is getting a generator type and seed from environment variables.
Then see 18.3 Random number generator initialization - if you don't want to get the seed from an environment variable, you can use gsl_rng_set() to set the seed.

Answer 3

A complete answer to this question with a sample code can be seen in in this link.
Just for completeness I am putting a copy of the code for a function to create a seed here. It is written by Robert G. Brown: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ .
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
unsigned long int random_seed()
{
unsigned int seed;
struct timeval tv;
FILE *devrandom;
if ((devrandom = fopen("/dev/random","r")) == NULL) {
gettimeofday(&tv,0);
seed = tv.tv_sec + tv.tv_usec;
} else {
fread(&seed,sizeof(seed),1,devrandom);
fclose(devrandom);
}
return(seed);
}
But from my own experience with this function, I would say that the dev/random solution is very time consuming compared to the gettimeofday(), you can check it out. So, the gettimeofday() solution, might be better for you if its level of accuracy is enough:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
unsigned long int random_seed()
{
struct timeval tv;
gettimeofday(&tv,0);
return (tv.tv_sec + tv.tv_usec);
}