[R] same random numbers in different sessions

[Daniel Nordlund]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
> On Behalf Of Liviu Andronic
> Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 2:15 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org Help
> Subject: [R] same random numbers in different sessions
> 
> Dear all
> I'm using Xubuntu Lucid and I keep getting the same random numbers
> whenever I start a new session of R. For example, I keep getting
> > sample(1:1000, 1)
> [1] 87
> 
> or
> > rnorm(1:10)
>  [1] -1.3618103  0.4241701  1.0720076  0.2208145 -0.5375314 -0.4846588
>  [7]  0.7576768  0.6527407 -0.6868786  0.8718527
> 
> I expected that some set.seed() instruction woudl be present in a
> config file in
> /usr/lib/R/etc/
> 
> but after grepping the only reference came out in Rprofile.site and it
> was commented out:
> # set.seed(1234)
> 
> What else could be causing this? Regards
> Liviu
> 

Could you be reloading a workspace at start-up that is setting the seed?  What happens if you start R using the --vanilla option?

Dan

Daniel Nordlund
Bothell, WA USA