[R] How to choose "seed" in set.seed(seed, ...)?

Michael Hannon jm_hannon at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 4 04:57:18 CET 2010


Greetings.  I understand that to generate distinct sequences of random numbers
in R one can initialize the calculation of each sequence by calling the
set.seed() function with a distinct value for "seed" the (integer) first
argument to the function.

I'd like to know if there are any guidelines or best practices for
choosing "seed".

I.e., is it OK just to choose seed as any consecutive integers (1, 2, 3, ...),
or should the integers be, say, relatively prime (7, 9, 13, ...), or disjoint
sequences of digits from pi (14159, 26535, 89793, ...) or ...?

Thanks.

-- Mike



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