NAME

Math::Random::MT - The Mersenne Twister PRNG

SYNOPSIS

 use Math::Random::MT;

 $gen = Math::Random::MT->new($seed); # OR...
 $gen = Math::Random::MT->new(@seed);

 print $gen->rand(3);

OR

 use Math::Random::MT qw(srand rand);

 # now srand and rand behave as usual.

DESCRIPTION

The Mersenne Twister is a pseudorandom number generator developed by Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji Nishimura. It is described in their paper at <URL:http://www.math.keio.ac.jp/~nisimura/random/doc/mt.ps>.

This module implements two interfaces, as described in the synopsis above. It defines the following functions.

Functions

new($seed): Creates a new generator seeded with an unsigned 32-bit integer.
new(@seed): Creates a new generator seeded with an array of (up to 624) unsigned 32-bit integers.
rand($num): Behaves exactly like Perl's builtin rand(), returning a number uniformly distributed in [0, $num) ($num defaults to 1).
srand($seed): This is an alternative interface to the module's functionality. It behaves just like Perl's builtin srand(). If you use this interface, it is strongly recommended that you call srand() explicitly, rather than relying on rand() to call it the first time it is used.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sean M. Burke: For giving me the idea to write this module.
Philip Newton: For several useful patches.

AUTHOR

Abhijit Menon-Sen <ams@wiw.org>

This software is distributed under the terms of the Artistic License <URL:http://ams.wiw.org/code/artistic.txt>.