integer type conversion problem/question

[Faheem Mitha]

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004, Josiah Carlson wrote:

>> It looks like using a random number generator which uses unsigned ints
>> as its seeds with Python is probably close to impossible then. Can
>> anyone suggest a good C/C++ random number implementation which can be
>> used easily with Python in this fashion? I want something that is
>> full-featured, ie. has reasonable support for different random number
>> distributions. Also, something that was already packaged in a
>> reasonable fashion as part of a shared library would be nice. I
>> suppose something whose seeds are stored as ints or longs would work
>> Ok.
>
> Mersenne Twister is included with Python 2.3 and later (maybe even 2.2,
> I can't remember that far back).
>
> You can use it via:
> import random
>
> It includes various distributions, read the documentation.

I'd looked at this earlier, but they didn't seem to have implemented a C 
API. If there is one, I haven't been able to find it in 
http://python.org/doc/2.3.4/api/api.html or anywhere else. I don't want to 
import Python code into C/C++ even if that is possible. I think it is 
easiest to work with a straight C/C++ library and interface it with 
Python, assuming that I don't run into type conversion issues.

A random number C module does exist in Python 2.3. On my system (Debian 
Sarge) it is /usr/lib/python2.3/lib-dynload/_random.so. However, it is 
probably not set up to be directly accessed from C/C++ code.

                                                                Faheem.