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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter 2006

A Repetition Test for Pseudo-Random Number Generators

  • Manuel Gil , Gaston H. Gonnet and Wesley P. Petersen
From the journal

A new statistical test for uniform pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) is presented. The idea is that a sequence of pseudo-random numbers should have numbers reappear with a certain probability. The expectation time that a repetition occurs provides the metric for the test. For linear congruential generators (LCGs) failure can be shown theoretically. Empirical test results for a number of commonly used PRNGs are reported, showing that some PRNGs considered to have good statistical properties fail. A sample implementation of the test is provided over the Internet.

Published Online: --
Published in Print: 2006-11-01

Copyright 2006, Walter de Gruyter

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