The random Module
The random
module
generates pseudo-random numbers with various distributions. The
underlying uniform pseudo-random generator uses the Whichmann-Hill
algorithm, with a period of length 6,953,607,871,644. The resulting
pseudo-random numbers, while quite good, are not of cryptographic
quality. If you want physically generated random numbers rather than
algorithmically generated pseudo-random numbers, you may use
/dev/random
or /dev/urandom
on platforms that support such pseudo-devices (such as recent Linux
releases). For an alternative, see http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits.
All functions
of module random
are methods of a hidden instance
of class random.Random
. You can instantiate
Random
explicitly to get multiple generators that
do not share state. Explicit instantiation is advisable if you
require random numbers in multiple threads (threads are covered in
Chapter 14). This section documents the most
frequently used functions exposed by module
random
.
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