R help - Feb 2010 - How to choose "seed" in set.seed(seed, ...)?

Greetings.  I understand that to generate distinct sequences of random numbers
in R one can initialize the calculation of each sequence by calling the
set.seed() function with a distinct value for "seed" the (integer)
first
argument to the function.

I'd like to know if there are any guidelines or best practices for
choosing "seed".

I.e., is it OK just to choose seed as any consecutive integers (1, 2, 3, ...),
or should the integers be, say, relatively prime (7, 9, 13, ...), or disjoint
sequences of digits from pi (14159, 26535, 89793, ...) or ...?

Thanks.

-- Mike

Hi Michael,

Experts will answer you better than me, but IMHO
there is no "best practices". In general you deal with set.seed()
when you want that others (or yourself) reproduce the
same sequence of random numbers generation as you
run on a moment.

Best regards

milton




On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 10:57 PM, Michael Hannon <jm_hannon@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Greetings.  I understand that to generate distinct sequences of random
> numbers
> in R one can initialize the calculation of each sequence by calling the
> set.seed() function with a distinct value for "seed" the
(integer) first
> argument to the function.
>
> I'd like to know if there are any guidelines or best practices for
> choosing "seed".
>
> I.e., is it OK just to choose seed as any consecutive integers (1, 2, 3,
> ...),
> or should the integers be, say, relatively prime (7, 9, 13, ...), or
> disjoint
> sequences of digits from pi (14159, 26535, 89793, ...) or ...?
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- Mike
>
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>
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