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RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) [message #14330]

Sun, 21 February 1999 00:00

landsman
Messages: 93
Registered: August 1991

Member

Versions 5.1.1 and 5.2 of IDL have a bug in the RANDOMU (and RANDOMN) function
such that the SEED variable is initialized to the same value at the start of
each session, rather than being intialized by the system clock (see example
below). I believe that so long as one as one stays within one IDL session
that this causes no problems, but if one is, say, combining Monte Carlo
simulations from different IDL sessions, then the results will be decidedly
unrandom.

RSI knows about this problem and say that they are giving it very high
priority for a fix.

On another subject, does anyone know if there is a HTML help distribution for
IDL V5.2, like there was for IDL V5.1? I couldn't find one on the CD-Rom
distribution.

--Wayne Landsman landsman@mpb.gsfc.nasa.gov

mpb{landsman}102: idl

IDL> print,!VERSION
{ sparc sunos unix 5.2 Oct 30 1998}
IDL> print,randomu(seed)
0.415999
IDL> print,randomu(seed)
0.0919649
IDL> exit

mpb{landsman}102: idl
IDL Version 5.2 (sunos sparc). Research Systems, Inc.

IDL> print,randomu(seed)
0.415999
IDL> print,randomu(seed)
0.0919649

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[Message index]

		RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: landsman on Sun, 21 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: ajschmitt on Wed, 24 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug By: Ivan Zimine on Wed, 24 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: steinhh on Wed, 24 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: thompson on Tue, 23 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: landsman on Tue, 23 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: landsman on Mon, 22 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: davidf on Mon, 22 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: ajschmitt on Mon, 22 February 1999 00:00
		Re: RANDOMU bug (and HTML help) By: mallors on Mon, 22 February 1999 00:00

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