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authorRaymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com>2010-09-07 05:32:49 (GMT)
committerRaymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com>2010-09-07 05:32:49 (GMT)
commitb21dac1e38285f6f36905a294c2a3e8bceac2d89 (patch)
tree5ce2867145e593c193b0cc30f7538d244dab2928 /Doc
parent0515661314c4e5b9235e07b2c46b8f456c7fadc3 (diff)
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Remove outdated reference to Wichmann-Hill algorithm.
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc')
-rw-r--r--Doc/library/random.rst16
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/random.rst b/Doc/library/random.rst
index c690eea..1e1668f 100644
--- a/Doc/library/random.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/random.rst
@@ -8,9 +8,10 @@
This module implements pseudo-random number generators for various
distributions.
-For integers, uniform selection from a range. For sequences, uniform selection
-of a random element, a function to generate a random permutation of a list
-in-place, and a function for random sampling without replacement.
+For integers, there is uniform selection from a range. For sequences, there is
+uniform selection of a random element, a function to generate a random
+permutation of a list in-place, and a function for random sampling without
+replacement.
On the real line, there are functions to compute uniform, normal (Gaussian),
lognormal, negative exponential, gamma, and beta distributions. For generating
@@ -35,15 +36,6 @@ basic generator of your own devising: in that case, override the :meth:`random`,
Optionally, a new generator can supply a :meth:`getrandbits` method --- this
allows :meth:`randrange` to produce selections over an arbitrarily large range.
-As an example of subclassing, the :mod:`random` module provides the
-:class:`WichmannHill` class that implements an alternative generator in pure
-Python. The class provides a backward compatible way to reproduce results from
-earlier versions of Python, which used the Wichmann-Hill algorithm as the core
-generator. Note that this Wichmann-Hill generator can no longer be recommended:
-its period is too short by contemporary standards, and the sequence generated is
-known to fail some stringent randomness tests. See the references below for a
-recent variant that repairs these flaws.
-
The :mod:`random` module also provides the :class:`SystemRandom` class which
uses the system function :func:`os.urandom` to generate random numbers
from sources provided by the operating system.