R devel - Sep 2021 - WISH: set.seed(seed) to produce error if length(seed) != 1 (now silent)

Hi,

according to help("set.seed"), argument 'seed' to set.seed()
should be:

  a single value, interpreted as an integer, or NULL (see ?Details?).
>From code inspection (src/main/RNG.c) and testing, it turns out that
if you pass a 'seed' with length greater than one, it silently uses
seed[1], e.g.
> set.seed(1); sum(.Random.seed)
[1] 4070365163
> set.seed(1:3); sum(.Random.seed)
[1] 4070365163
> set.seed(1:100); sum(.Random.seed)
[1] 4070365163

I'd like to suggest that set.seed() produces an error if
length(seed)
> 1.  As a reference, for length(seed) == 0, we get:
> set.seed(integer(0))
Error in set.seed(integer(0)) : supplied seed is not a valid integer

/Henrik

Hi, Henrik.

I?m curious, other than proper programming practice, why?

Avi

On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 11:48 AM Henrik Bengtsson <
henrik.bengtsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> according to help("set.seed"), argument 'seed' to
set.seed() should be:
>
>   a single value, interpreted as an integer, or NULL (see ?Details?).
>
> From code inspection (src/main/RNG.c) and testing, it turns out that
> if you pass a 'seed' with length greater than one, it silently uses
> seed[1], e.g.
>
> > set.seed(1); sum(.Random.seed)
> [1] 4070365163
> > set.seed(1:3); sum(.Random.seed)
> [1] 4070365163
> > set.seed(1:100); sum(.Random.seed)
> [1] 4070365163
>
> I'd like to suggest that set.seed() produces an error if length(seed)
> > 1.  As a reference, for length(seed) == 0, we get:
>
> > set.seed(integer(0))
> Error in set.seed(integer(0)) : supplied seed is not a valid integer
>
> /Henrik
>
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> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
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