[Python-Dev] a note in random.shuffle.doc ... (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Tue Jun 13 01:50:11 CEST 2006


Terry Jones wrote:

The code below uses a RNG with period 5, is deterministic, and has one initial state. It produces 20 different outcomes.

You misunderstand what's meant by "outcome" in this context. The outcome of your algorithm is the whole sequence of numbers it produces, not each individual number. And if the rng state is the only initial condition that can vary, it can't produce more than 5 distinct sequences.

-- Greg



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