Re: [Boost-users] [Random] Change in normal_distribution behavior between Boost 1.49 and Boost 1.56

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Random] Change in normal_distribution behavior between Boost 1.49 and Boost 1.56
From: Steven Watanabe (watanabesj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-06-17 01:54:18

AMDG

On 06/16/2015 03:43 PM, Jonathan Jones wrote:
> 
> I've isolated this to a change in the implementation of
> normal_distribution between these two versions (mt19937 is producing the
> same sequence of numbers with the same starting seed).
> 
> My question is, is there any guarantee that this distribution is going to
> produce the same answers across different versions of Boost, given the
> same starting seed (zero in this case)?
> 

  No.  The engines are guaranteed to produce
consistent outputs, but there are no such
guarantees for distributions.  Note that
implementations of std::normal_distribution
are likely to produce different results
from Boost and from each other, as well.

In Christ,
Steven Watanabe