Random problems with R

09/18/2018

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by   Kellie Ottoboni, et al.

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R (Version 3.5.1 patched) has an issue with its random sampling functionality. R generates random integers between 1 and m by multiplying random floats by m, taking the floor, and adding 1 to the result. Well-known quantization effects in this approach result in a non-uniform distribution on { 1, …, m}. The difference, which depends on m, can be substantial. Because the sample function in R relies on generating random integers, random sampling in R is biased. There is an easy fix: construct random integers directly from random bits, rather than multiplying a random float by m. That is the strategy taken in Python's numpy.random.randint() function, among others. Example source code in Python is available at https://github.com/statlab/cryptorandom/blob/master/cryptorandom/cryptorandom.py (see functions getrandbits() and randbelow_from_randbits()).