ocaml/stdlib/random.mli

84 lines
3.2 KiB
OCaml

(***********************************************************************)
(* *)
(* Objective Caml *)
(* *)
(* Damien Doligez, projet Para, INRIA Rocquencourt *)
(* *)
(* Copyright 1996 Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et *)
(* en Automatique. All rights reserved. This file is distributed *)
(* under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License, with *)
(* the special exception on linking described in file ../LICENSE. *)
(* *)
(***********************************************************************)
(* $Id$ *)
(** Pseudo-random number generators (PRNG). *)
(** {6 functions for casual users} *)
val init : int -> unit
(** Initialize the generator, using the argument as a seed.
The same seed will always yield the same sequence of numbers. *)
val full_init : int array -> unit
(** Same as {!Random.init} but takes more data as seed. *)
val self_init : unit -> unit
(** Initialize the generator with a more-or-less random seed chosen
in a system-dependent way. The generator is initialised with this
function at the start of the program. *)
val bits : unit -> int
(** Return 30 random bits in a nonnegative integer. *)
val int : int -> int
(** [Random.int bound] returns a random integer between 0 (inclusive)
and [bound] (exclusive). [bound] must be more than 0 and less
than 2{^30}. *)
val float : float -> float
(** [Random.float bound] returns a random floating-point number
between 0 (inclusive) and [bound] (exclusive). If [bound] is
negative, the result is negative or zero. If [bound] is 0,
the result is 0. *)
val bool : unit -> bool
(** [Random.bool ()] returns [true] or [false] with probability 0.5 each. *)
type state
(** Values of this type are used to store the current state of the
generator. *)
val get_state : unit -> state
(** Return the current state of the generator. This is useful for
checkpointing computations that use the PRNG. *)
val set_state : state -> unit
(** Reset the state of the generator to some previous state returned by
{!Random.get_state}. *)
(** {6 functions for serious users} *)
(** These function manipulate the current state explicitely.
This allows you to use one or several deterministic PRNGs,
even in a multi-threaded program, without interference from
other parts of the program (for example, the Filename module
and some object-oriented primitives use the default PRNG).
*)
val s_make : int array -> state;;
(** Create a new state and initialize it with the given seed. *)
val s_copy : state -> state;;
(** Make a copy of the given state. *)
val s_bits : state -> int;;
val s_int : state -> int -> int;;
val s_float : state -> float -> float;;
val s_bool : state -> bool;;
(** These functions are the same as the above versions, except that they
use (and update) the given PRNG state instead of the default one.
*)