Random Numbers & Reproducibility in Python

Random Numbers with Numpy

Numpy has a sub-module called random. Technically both are of the ‘module’ class. numpy.random contains other methods like: seed, set_state, standard_t etc.

# Submodules

import numpy

print("numpy.random is a", type(numpy.random))
print("numpy is a", type(numpy))
print("it contains names such as...", dir(numpy.random)[-15:])

Reproducibility

When using numpy.random, you can ensure reproducibility by accessing numpy.random.seed(30), which mirrors #Rstats’ set.seed(30) behavior.

import random

numpy.random.seed(30)
rolls = numpy.random.randint(low=1, high=6, size=10)
rolls