Hi,
On 2017-02-07 13:12, Benjamin Tyner wrote:
Hello
When loading a package, I'm wondering if it's frowned upon for the
package to alter the state of the random number generator? I guess not,
since the parallel package does it?
Surprisingly it is not frowned upon, but it *is* a nuisance. I brought
it up a couple of years ago
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/parallel-package-changes-Random-seed-td4686321.html
along with a patch, but was told off...
> set.seed(6860)
> old.seed <- .GlobalEnv$.Random.seed
> library(parallel)
> new.seed <- .GlobalEnv$.Random.seed
> identical(old.seed, new.seed)
[1] FALSE
I ask because, I found myself writing a custom wrapper around library()
to restore the original RNG state, in order to increase reproducibility.
But now wondering if others would welcome such a feature to be added to
base R? Either something very general like
preserveRNGstate(library(parallel))
or perhaps an specific enhancement to library itself?
I would very much welcome a change, but in the light of things it
doesn't seem likely.
Henric Winell
Regards
Ben
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