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Correctly Setting New Seed

6 messages · Ellerbe, Caitlyn Nicole, Jeff Newmiller, John Kane +2 more

Jeff Newmiller
# 
"Crashes" is not a clear description. When I execute the statement:

set.seed(seed)

I get the error

Error in set.seed(seed) : object 'seed' not found

which makes sense because there is no variable defined that is called "seed".

Choose a literal value like 42:

set.seed(42)

or define the variable

seed <- 42
set.seed(seed)

and you should not get that error.

If you get a different error message, then give us a better clue how to reproduce it. (Also, please post plain text email as the Posting Guide requests. You have read that, right?)
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Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
"Ellerbe, Caitlyn Nicole" <ellerbcn at musc.edu> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Ellerbe, Caitlyn Nicole
    

    

      
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By crash, I mean that it shuts the program and no error message is provided. However, my question is more general - how to get the two versions of code below to return the same string of random numbers. The code provided will run without incident  and is only provided to make the problem clear. The true code that causes the crash isn't necessary, only that I need to be able to split it into smaller chunks while maintaining the integrity of the random sequence even if the program closes and all information is lost. 

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Ellerbe, Caitlyn Nicole
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2013 2:06 PM
To: r-help at R-project.org
Subject: [R] Correctly Setting New Seed

Could someone please suggest a method to store the current random seed. I'm having trouble understanding how to correctly use set.seed and .Random.seed.

Specifically, I have the following code that crashes:



set.seed(seed)

for(i in 1:10){

  print( runif(1))

}



To get around this I need to split the number of iterations into chunks:



set.seed(seed)

for(i in 1:5){

print(runif(1))

new.seed<-.Random.seed

}



set.seed(new.seed)

for(i in 6:10){

print(runif(1))

}



When I compare the sequence of numbers from the single run to the sequence from the chunked code they don't match. Is the .Random.seed argument in the wrong position or is there another way to accomplish this?

-------------------------------------------------------
Caitlyn Ellerbe

Division of Biostatistics
Department of Public Health
Medical University of South Carolina



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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      John Kane
    

    

      
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I was wondering about that code.  It seemed to run alright for me.
We really need to see the code and hopefully the data, or a,sample thereof, that is causing the actual crash.  Prefereably cut out anything that is not causing the problem and ship us the bare minimum of code.


 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example

Thanks

John Kane
Kingston ON Canada

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        
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      Nordlund, Dan (DSHS/RDA)
    

    

      
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To answer your specific question, you need to change the line

set.seed(new.seed)

To 

.Random.seed <- new.seed


Hope this is helpful,

Dan

Daniel J. Nordlund
Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
Planning, Performance, and Accountability
Research and Data Analysis Division
Olympia, WA 98504-5204