# Output from R's runif function

HOME I've just been looking at the details of random number generators (RNGs), in particular R's runif function. We use these a lot for simulations, and (my immediate concern) for random-walk MCMC samplers. The questions I wanted to answer were:
• How often does runif(n, 0, 1) produce values equal to 0 or 1? (Never.)
• Can a sequence of random numbers from runif have two values that are exactly equal? (Yes.)
• If I plug in the same value for set.seed, will I always get the same sequence of numbers? (Yes, provided you also use the same RNG kind.)
• If I plug in different values for set.seed, will I get different sequences? (Not guaranteed.)

### The internals of runif

Most pseudo-random number generators actually produce long integers, which have values up to 231 - 1 = 2147483647 = 2.15 billion. These are then converted by functions like runif to give the values you need. If your call was runif(n, 0, 1), the interval (0, 1) is divided into 2147483647 segments and the output gives the mid-points of the segments.

The smallest value you can get is 2-33 = 1.16e-10 and the largest is 1 - 2-33 = 1 - 1.16e-10. Even allowing for the imprecision of floating-point numbers, those are well clear of 0 and 1.

Since there are only a limited number of possible values in the output (albeit 2 billion), a long sequence of numbers will have exact duplicates. A sequence of 100 million numbers had 1% duplicated.

### What set seed does

The actual seed for most RNGs is very long. For the Mersenne-Twister RNG, the default in R, it is a vector of 624 integers (use  .Random.seed in R to see it; the first number codes the RNG type).

When you call set.seed with an integer argument, a specific vector of values is generated for .Random.seed Using the same integer again will give the same .Random.seed, and you'll get the same sequence of pseudorandom numbers provided you are using the same kind of RNG.

But there is no guarantee that a different argument will give a different .Random.seed and a different sequence.

Updated 22 December 2019 by Mike Meredith