tenya has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I want to test a statistical analysis. To do this I want to generate a test data set, for which I need to generate random numbers that are uniformly distributed over two orders of magnitude. Active State ppm does not seem to want to install math::random or math::rand48 on my system (ppm says that it can not find the binary, but at least math::rand48 shows up with search). Has this worked for anyone with windows 2000? Or is there another way to get good random number for my script?
Thanks

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Re: Random numbers for windows 2000?
by t0mas (Priest) on Apr 27, 2001 at 10:16 UTC
    random.org is a good place to get random numbers.


    /brother t0mas
[reply]
      Wow! Nice link. What kind of distribution has it? Wait... Let me have a check..

      Make that an uniform distribution. Since I am a biologist, I use mainly gaussion distributed noise. Luckily, the distribution can be transformed...

      Jeroen
      "We are not alone"(FZ)

[reply]
Re: Random numbers for windows 2000?
by BrotherAde (Pilgrim) on Apr 27, 2001 at 16:18 UTC
    If you can't install stuff through ppm, try the old-fashioned way: Grab nmake and Math::Random then decompress the tar.gz file into a temporary directory, change into that directory and: 
    perl makefile.pl
nmake
nmake test
nmake install

    [download]
    and you're done...

    Of course, you'll have to check that nmake is in your path somewhere.

    Hope that helps,
    BrotherAde

[reply]
[d/l]
      I discovered that nmake needs the microsoft C++ compiler (cl.exe), which I do not have, sigh.
      Tye also has a useful post on modules for windows:
      Re: Installing modules on Win32. Sorry, I don't know how to hyperlink this.

      Perhaps it is not possible to port random::math to win32 system
      (which is why ActiveState has not created a binary for it).
      Does anyone have this installed on win32?
      If not, any suggestions? I need to generate about 5e6
      random integers between 0 and 99 inclusive (uniform distribution) each time I run my program.
[reply]
        Aaah... I see. nmake doesn't need cl.exe per se, but it does so in connection with modules that contain code in C++. I suggest you try installing the GNU development tools and utilities for Windows. They come with perl, a version of make and gcc, the GNU C++ compiler. They also give you the power of bash on Windows, so you should have seen a *nix-box at least from a distance.

        Hope that helps, if not, drop me another note and I'll explain specifics.
        BrotherAde

        Update
        I think I might be able to get my hands on a machine that has both perl and Visual C++ installed. I might be able to rig up a binary for you, just drop me a line.
[reply]

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