SRFI 27: Sources of Random Bits

by Sebastian Egner

status: final (2002-06-03)

keywords: Randomness

library name: random-bits

Abstract

This document specifies an interface to sources of random bits, or "random sources" for brevity. In particular, there are three different ways to use the interface, with varying demands on the quality of the source and the amount of control over the production process:

Once random sources provide the infrastructure to obtain random bits, these can be used to construct other random deviates. Most important are floating point numbers of various distributions and random discrete structures, such as permutations or graphs. As there is an essentially unlimited number of such objects (with limited use elsewhere), we do not include them in this SRFI. In other words, this SRFI is not about making all sorts of random objects---it is about obtaining random bits in a portable, flexible, reliable, and efficient way.