On Sun, Jun 19, 2022 at 9:37 AM Pieter Eendebak <pieter.eende...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> The new numpy random interface (e.g. r=numpy.random.default_rng; r.random)
> is much faster than the old one (e.g. np.random.random). When converting
>  code from the old style to the new style I miss having a way to set the
> seed of the RNG
>
> I tried:
>
> rng.bit_generator = np.random.PCG64(seed=42) # fails, with good error
> message
> rng.bit_generator.state['state']['state']=42 # has no effect, perhaps make
> this dict read-only?
>
> Is there a way to set the seed without creating a new RNG object?
>

We generally recommend just creating a new Generator and passing that
around in almost all cases. Whenever that can possibly be made to work,
please do that. The use of np.random.seed() is usually a code smell
indicating that someone was working around the fact that there was just the
one global underneath np.random.random() et al. When you don't have the
constraint of a single global instance, it's almost always going to be
better to use multiple instances; you don't need that workaround anymore.

There are ways to punch in a new BitGenerator into an existing Generator,
if you must, and also ways to punch in a state dict into the BitGenerator,
but these are largely for various meta-programming tasks like serialization
rather than day-to-day use of pseudorandom numbers. If you are converting
old code that happened to use np.random.seed(), it is almost certainly not
one of these tasks.

If you want to describe your use case more specifically, I can give you
some more guidance on good patterns to replace it with the new system.

-- 
Robert Kern
_______________________________________________
NumPy-Discussion mailing list -- numpy-discussion@python.org
To unsubscribe send an email to numpy-discussion-le...@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/numpy-discussion.python.org/
Member address: arch...@mail-archive.com

Reply via email to