> -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org > [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Duncan Murdoch > Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 2:57 PM > To: Stavros Macrakis > Cc: r-help@r-project.org > Subject: Re: [R] runif limited precision > > On 02/01/2009 4:16 PM, Stavros Macrakis wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Duncan Murdoch > <murd...@stats.uwo.ca> wrote: > >> On 02/01/2009 2:45 PM, Stavros Macrakis wrote: > >>> ...So I'd think that either runif should give full precision or > >>> its documentation should mention this limitation. > >> It refers to the .Random.seed page for details, and that > page mentions the > >> limitation to at most 2^32 different values for most of > the generators. > > > > Indeed it does -- thanks for the pointer! I still think it would be > > helpful to the user to mention the limitation in the individual > > r<dist> doc pages, as not many users are likely to work through the > > very complete RNG doc page. > > I don't agree. If you add too much technical detail to a topic, then > people don't "work through it". I'd say the r<dist> pages generally > give enough detail now, but not too much. If you add every > detail that > might interest someone somewhere, then they'd all be hard to read. > > Duncan Murdoch >
I would have to agree with Duncan on this. Besides, if you are doing something where having only 2^32 distinct values is a problem, you probably should be "working through" ALL of the documentation on random number generation in R. But that is just my 4 cents worth (inflation :-). Dan Daniel Nordlund Bothell, WA USA ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
