edu.cornell.lassp.houle.RngPack
Class RandomSeedable

java.lang.Object
  cern.colt.PersistentObject
      edu.cornell.lassp.houle.RngPack.RandomElement
          edu.cornell.lassp.houle.RngPack.RandomSeedable

All Implemented Interfaces:

java.io.Serializable, java.lang.Cloneable

Direct Known Subclasses:

RandomEngine, Ranecu, Ranlux, Ranmar

public abstract class RandomSeedable
extends RandomElement

RandomSeedable is an abstract class that extends the RandomElement class to include the ability to automatically generate a valid long seed from the clock. Thus it provides a consistent interface for seeding interchangable generators. It is reccomended that a RandomSeedable have a constructor that takes a long for a seed. For example, if you write a generator called ReallyRandom, you want to be able to do

 long seed = ReallyRandom.ClockSeed();
 RandomSeedable e = new ReallyRandom(seed);
 

this makes it convenient to keep a copy of the seed in case you want to restart the generator with the same seed some time in the future.

If one is going to use a long to generate a smaller seed by taking Clockseed() modulus another number, we reccomend that you use a prime number; this ensures that the generator would have the maximum "period" if it were started at regular issues, for instance, by a batch job. See Ranmar for an example.

Source code is available.

Version:

1.0

Author:

Paul Houle (E-mail: houle@msc.cornell.edu)

See Also:

Ranecu, Ranlux, Ranmar, Serialized Form

Constructor Summary

RandomSeedable()

Method Summary

static long	ClockSeed() Return a long integer seed calculated from the date.
static long	ClockSeed(java.util.Date d) Return a long integer seed given a date

Methods inherited from class edu.cornell.lassp.houle.RngPack.RandomElement

choose, choose, gaussian, gaussian, powlaw, raw, raw, raw, uniform

Methods inherited from class cern.colt.PersistentObject

clone

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

equals, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

RandomSeedable

public RandomSeedable()

Method Detail

ClockSeed

public static long ClockSeed()

Return a long integer seed calculated from the date. Equivalent to ClockSeed(new Date());

Returns:

a long integer seed

ClockSeed

public static long ClockSeed(java.util.Date d)

Return a long integer seed given a date

Parameters:

d - a date

Returns:

a long integer seed