fastrand

Fast random number generation in Python using PCG

Blog post: Ranged random-number generation is slow in Python…

Requirements: Linux-like system (including a Mac), a C compiler, Python.

python setup.py build
python setup.py install --home=$HOME
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:~/lib/python

Usage... (don't forget to type the above lines in your shell!)

import fastrand

print("generate an integer in [0,1001)")
fastrand.pcg32bounded(1001) 
print("Generate a random 32-bit integer.")
fastrand.pcg32()

It is nearly an order of magnitude faster than the alternatives:

python -m timeit -s 'import fastrand' 'fastrand.pcg32bounded(1001)'
10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.0602 usec per loop
python -m timeit -s 'import random' 'random.randint(0,1000)'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.698 usec per loop
python -m timeit -s 'import numpy' 'numpy.random.randint(0, 1000)'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.795 usec per loop

future work

Also look at https://github.com/rkern/line_profiler

Reference

http://www.pcg-random.org
Daniel Lemire, Fast Random Integer Generation in an Interval, ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (to appear)

cartopy/fastrand

fastrand

future work

Reference