92-11-25.wh-der
A Portable Uniform Random Number Generator
Well Suited for the Rejection Method
Abstract
Up to now all known efficient portable implementations of linear
congruential random number generators with modulus $2^{31}-1$
are working only with multipliers which are small compared
with the modulus. We show that for non-uniform distributions,
the rejection method may
generate random numbers of bad quality if combined with a linear
congruential generator with small multiplier.
Therefore a method is described that works for any multiplier
smaller than $2^{30}$. It uses the decomposition of multiplier and
seed in high order and low order bits to compute the upper and the
lower half of the product. The sum of the two halfs gives the product of
multiplier and seed modulo $2^{31}-1$. Coded in ANSI-C and FORTRAN77
the method
results in a portable implementation of the linear congruential
generator that is as fast or faster than other portable methods.
Mathematics Subject Classification:
65C10 (Random Number Generation)
CR Categories and Subject Descriptors:
G.3 [Probability and Statistics]: Random number generation
General Terms:
Algorithms
Key Words:
uniform random number generator,
linear congruential generator, portability, rejection method,
quality of non-uniform random numbers
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© ACM, (1992). This is the author's version of the work.
It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use.
Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in
Trans. Math. Softw. 19(4), 489-495.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/168173.168414
Paper
Wolfgang.Hoermann@statistik.wu-wien.ac.at