[GRASS-dev] using rand(x,y) in r.mapcalc (grass7)

[Vaclav Petras]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 8:15 PM, Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>
wrote:

> > Shouldn't the seed not be generated on e.g, OS time,
> > which would ensure that each run would give a different result?
>
> No. The reason is to provide reproducibility. Anyone running the same
> command with the same data should obtain the same result.
>
> Does the reproducibility go behind one operating system, compiler or
library? I don't think that the first random number is specified by the C
language standard. If the results would be really reproducible it would be
good for testing framework but I'm afraid that they are not (with my
limited knowledge about the topic).


> If you want a different result each time, set GRASS_RND_SEED to a
> different value each time, e.g.
>
>         GRASS_RND_SEED=`date +%N` r.mapcalc "a = rand(0,100)"
>
> [%N is the nanoseconds portion of the current time; this is a GNU
> extension.]
>

I've heard that this is not enough on powerful computers/clusters, that you
have to use also PID because nanoseconds might be the same (I think I
rememberer that it was nanoseconds not seconds).


>
> > On a related note, it would be nice to be able to set the seed (I think
> > there has been such a request before, but not sure about the answer at
> that
> > time).
>
> GRASS_RND_SEED was the answer.


I think there should be some possibility of randomization (auto-setting of
seed) build-in the modules providing random(ized) results. Perhaps a flag
which would turn it on. It can be also an option which would behave like
GRASS_RND_SEED but would have one special value for auto-generating the
seed. (GRASS_RND_SEED if present would override this option.) With the
default value of the option we should ask a question what is actually the
expected behavior of the module giving random results.

This would provide a nicer interface in Python, standard interface in
command line, and possibility to set it in the GUI (which means possibility
to set it for users which don't use command line.) Moreover, it would
provide all users with the way of setting the random seen in the manner
which we consider the best according to our knowledge.

Vaclav
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