Re: [boost] [Random] Mersenne Twister initialization problem [PATCH]

From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-01-25 11:07:15

>The Mersenne Twister RNG was updated by the original author in 2002,
>because of a small problem in the seeding procedure, which was that the
>most significant bit of the seed was not well reflected to the state
>vector. Read
>http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/MT2002/emt19937ar.html
>for more details.
>
>The version implemented in Boost is the original 1998 one, which
>contains the problem. The attached patch implements the new seeding
>procedure, which uses something different than the linear congruential
>RNG to initialize the state vector. I haven't identified the new
>procedure to match any generator already implemented in Boost, so I just
>wrote it there (please correct me if I'm wrong).

The problem we have here is that the behavior of our mersenne twister is now 
part of the C++ Technical Report 1, we should really report this as a 
defect, and get it changed there if this is indeed a problem.

John.