tinymt-erlang: Tiny Mersenne Twister (TinyMT) for Erlang

This software is no longer maintained

CAUTION: this software is no longer maintained. Migrate to the default rand module for OTP 18 and later, because they are maintained and using faster and better algorithms.

Version and credit information

• Version: 0.3.2
• Release date: 9-JUL-2017
• Edited and written by Kenji Rikitake
• Email contact: kenji.rikitake@acm.org

Travis CI build status for the master branch

License

Copyright (c) 2012-2017 Kenji Rikitake and Kyoto University. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Mutsuo Saito, Makoto Matsumoto, Hiroshima University, and the University of Tokyo. All rights reserved.

See the file LICENSE for the license (new/simplified BSD license). (Note: license of rebar is Apache 2.0 License.)

Details of TinyMT algorithm

This software is based on Tiny Mersenne Twister (TinyMT) Version 1.0.1 by Mutsuo Saito (Hiroshima University) and Makoto Matsumoto (The University of Tokyo). See http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/TINYMT/index.html. Also see https://github.com/jj1bdx/TinyMT/ for my fork of the reference code.

Changes from the old version

• make speed now compares with rand module exsplus algorithm (from 0.3.2)
• Output X interval for uniform/0 and uniform_s/1 is now 0.0 < X < 1.0, consistent with random and rand modules (from 0.3.0)
• Old NIF-supported version tagged as 20140409
• Old include file can be found in version tagged as 20140409
• NIF support removed
• Type specs updated for 17.0 (notably array() to array:array())
• The internal state now have opaque type tinymt32:intstate32/0
• tinymt32:uniform_s_list/{2,3} are removed
• EDoc comment added: do make doc for generating the documentation
• New functions for changing generation parameters tinymt32:setgenparams/{1,3} are added
• Common Test suite added as test/tinymt32_SUITE.erl
• Removed EUnit code
• HiPE options can be activatied in Makefile.tinymt

Notes

• Output X interval for uniform/0 and uniform_s/1 is now 0.0 < X < 1.0, consistent with random and rand modules (from 0.3.0)

• Test bug: In versions released previously before 13-JAN-2014, test_speed_orig_uniform_rec1/5 in tinymt32_tests and tinymt32_nif_tests errorneously called test_speed_orig_uniform_n_rec1/5 (note _n_). This bug would have been affected the evaluation result of the Erlang Workshop 2012 paper. The re-measured loop test execution time of random:uniform_s/1 is approx. 70 to 80 percent of that of random:uniform_s/2. This bug was found with the dialyzer program of R16B03.

• In versions released previously before 31-MAY-2012 (inclusive), seed0/0 had a wrong value in the #status2 member of the record which exceeded the limit of 2^32. This has been fixed by the corresponding 32-bit value.

On execution speed

• The HiPE version is about two to three times faster than non-HiPE version, measured in overall execution time, on x86_64/amd64 architectures. (see test-scripts/testspeed.escript) If you need a fast execution, compile with the HiPE option. (see rebar.config)

• The non-HiPE version is about six times slower than random module on x86_64/amd64, measured by fprof. This is presumably due to increased computational complexity of the algorithm.

Tested platforms

• OS X 10.12.5 with Erlang/OTP 20.0.1

Make options (of erlang.mk)

• Makefile works on both BSD/GNU make
• Makefile.tinymt is the real GNU make file; edit this file for modification
• Building: make
• Documentation: make docs
• Testing: make tests
• Execution speed benchmark: make speed
• See also erlang.mk for the details

hex.pm support

• Package name: tinymt
• See mix.exs

TODO

• More documentation and code
• More evaluation and refactoring

Code authors

• Kenji Rikitake
• Mutsuo Saito
• Makoto Matsumoto

THANKS to

• Dave "dizzyd" Smith
• Tuncer Ayaz
• Ryosuke "Voluntas" Nakai
• Loïc Hoguin

Acknowledgments

• Kenji Rikitake used the supercomputer service provided by Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies (ACCMS), Kyoto University, for testing this program and fundamental studies of TinyMT generation parameters.

• Kenji Rikitake thanks the Program Committee of ACM Erlang Workshop 2012 to give him a chance to present this work as a Practice and Application paper.