Service Routines

Stream handling comprises routines for creating, deleting, or copying the streams and getting the index of a basic generator. A random stream can also be saved to and then read from a binary file. Table "Service Routines" lists all available service routines

Service Routines
Routine	Short Description
NewStream	Creates and initializes a random stream.
NewStreamEx	Creates and initializes a random stream for the generators with multiple initial conditions.
iNewAbstractStream	Creates and initializes an abstract random stream for integer arrays.
dNewAbstractStream	Creates and initializes an abstract random stream for double precision floating-point arrays.
sNewAbstractStream	Creates and initializes an abstract random stream for single precision floating-point arrays.
DeleteStream	Deletes previously created stream.
CopyStream	Copies a stream to another stream.
CopyStreamState	Creates a copy of a random stream state.
SaveStreamF	Writes a stream to a binary file.
LoadStreamF	Reads a stream from a binary file.
SaveStreamM	Writes a random stream descriptive data, including state, to a memory buffer.
LoadStreamM	Creates a new stream and reads stream descriptive data, including state, from the memory buffer.
GetStreamSize	Computes size of memory necessary to hold the random stream.
LeapfrogStream	Initializes the stream by the leapfrog method to generate a subsequence of the original sequence.
SkipAheadStream	Initializes the stream by the skip-ahead method.
GetStreamStateBrng	Obtains the index of the basic generator responsible for the generation of a given random stream.
GetNumRegBrngs	Obtains the number of currently registered basic generators.

Note

In the above table, the vsl prefix in the function names is omitted. In the function reference this prefix is always used in function prototypes and code examples.

Most of the generator-based work comprises three basic steps:

Creating and initializing a stream (NewStream, NewStreamEx, CopyStream, CopyStreamState, LeapfrogStream, SkipAheadStream).
Generating random numbers with given distribution, see Distribution Generators.
Deleting the stream (DeleteStream).

Note that you can concurrently create multiple streams and obtain random data from one or several generators by using the stream state. You must use the DeleteStream function to delete all the streams afterwards.