[R-pkg-devel] Change in normal random numbers between R 3.5.3 and R 3.6.0

[R. Mark Sharp]

Ulrike,

RNGkind() worked on 3.4.1 and 3.6.0 but generated a warning on R 3.5.3. The message follows:

 checking whether package ‘nprcmanager’ can be installed ... WARNING
Found the following significant warnings:
  Note: possible error in 'RNGkind(sample.kind = "Rounding")': unused argument (sample.kind = "Rounding") 
See ‘/tmp/RtmpA4S3Ki/file32b81c218ac8/nprcmanager.Rcheck/00install.out’ for details.
Information on the location(s) of code generating the ‘Note’s can be
obtained by re-running with environment variable R_KEEP_PKG_SOURCE set
to ‘yes’.

Mark
R. Mark Sharp
rmsharp using me.com



> On May 9, 2019, at 11:39 PM, Ulrike Grömping <groemping using beuth-hochschule.de> wrote:
> 
> Mark,
> 
> I used
> 
> if (getRversion()>="3.6.0") RNGkind(sample.kind="Rounding")
> 
> And that works. Actually, using rnorm afterwards also yields the same random numbers.
> My question arose from the fact that I confused myself about the noLD output I was supposed to reproduce. Therefore, my problem should be entirely explained by Duncan Murdoch's initial explanation: the sample() change does not only lead to different results in discrete sampling but also to different results from random number calls for other functions (like rnorm).
> 
> Best, Ulrike
> 
> Am 10.05.2019 um 04:58 schrieb R. Mark Sharp:
>> I was dealing with a similar issue but in the context of getting the same unit test code to work on multiple versions of R in a Travis-CI build. It seems RNGkind(sample.kind="Rounding”) does not work prior to version 3.6 so I resorted to using version dependent construction of the argument list to set.seed() in do.call().
>> 
>> I better solution will be greatly appreciated.
>> 
>> #' Work around for unit tests using sample()
>> #'
>> #' @param seed argument to \code{set.seed}
>> set_seed <- function(seed = 1) {
>>   version <- as.integer(R.Version()$major) + (as.numeric(R.Version()$minor) / 10.0)
>>   if (version >= 3.6) {
>>     args <- list(seed, sample.kind = "Rounding")
>>   } else {
>>     args <- list(seed)
>>   }
>>   suppressWarnings(do.call(set.seed, args))
>> }
>> 
>> Mark
>> 
>> R. Mark Sharp, Ph.D.
>> Data Scientist and Biomedical Statistical Consultant
>> 7526 Meadow Green St.
>> San Antonio, TX 78251
>> mobile: 210-218-2868
>> rmsharp using me.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On May 9, 2019, at 12:45 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 09/05/2019 12:43 p.m., Ulrike Grömping wrote:
>>>> Hmmmh, but does that also apply if the sample.kind has been set to the
>>>> old version? I.e., would
>>>> if (getRversion()>="3.6.0") RNGkind(sample.kind="Rounding")
>>>> val <- 10
>>>> set.seed(val)
>>>> discard <- sample(1000, 100)
>>>> rnorm(36)
>>>> produce the same normal random numbers in 3.5.3 and 3.6.0? I would have
>>>> expected it to, but it seems to produce the same normal random numbers
>>>> as R version 3.6.0 in the previous version of the test code without the
>>>> RNGkind call.
>>> I'm not seeing that, but I'm not using the exact versions you tested. If I run your code in  "R version 3.5.2 (2018-12-20)" and "R Under development (unstable) (2019-05-02 r76454)" I get this output from both:
>>> 
>>>> if (getRversion()>="3.6.0") RNGkind(sample.kind="Rounding")
>>>> val <- 10
>>>> set.seed(val)
>>>> discard <- sample(1000, 100)
>>>> rnorm(36)
>>> [1] -0.4006375 -0.3345566  1.3679540  2.1377671  0.5058193  0.7863424 -0.9022119  0.5328970 -0.6458943  0.2909875 -1.2375945
>>> [12] -0.4561763 -0.8303227  0.3401156  1.0663764  1.2161258  0.7356907 -0.4812086  0.5627448 -1.2463197  0.3809222 -1.4304273
>>> [23] -1.0484455 -0.2185036 -1.4899362  1.1727063 -1.4798270 -0.4303878 -1.0516386  1.5225863  0.5928281 -0.2226615  0.7128943
>>> [34]  0.7166008  0.4402419  0.1588306
>>> 
>>> Okay, I just installed 3.6.0, and I get the same values there.  I don't see a Mac binary for 3.5.3, so I can't test that one.
>>> 
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>> 
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-package-devel using r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> 
> 
> -- 
> ##############################################
> ## Prof. Ulrike Groemping
> ## FB II
> ## Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin
> ##############################################
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