Consistently create same random numpy array

Question

I am waiting for another developer to finish a piece of code that will return an np array of shape (100,2000) with values of either -1,0, or 1.

In the meantime, I want to randomly create an array of the same characteristics so I can get a head start on my development and testing. The thing is that I want this randomly created array to be the same each time, so that I'm not testing against an array that keeps changing its value each time I re-run my process.

I can create my array like this, but is there a way to create it so that it's the same each time. I can pickle the object and unpickle it, but wondering if there's another way.

r = np.random.randint(3, size=(100, 2000)) - 1

Answer 1

Simply seed the random number generator with a fixed value, e.g.

numpy.random.seed(42)

This way, you'll always get the same random number sequence.

Answer 2

If you are using other functions relying on a random state, you can't just set and overall seed, but should instead create a function to generate your random list of number and set the seed as a parameter of the function. This will not disturb any other random generators in the code:

# Random states
def get_states(random_state, low, high, size):
    rs = np.random.RandomState(random_state)
    states = rs.randint(low=low, high=high, size=size)
    return states

# Call function
states = get_states(random_state=42, low=2, high=28347, size=25)

Answer 3

Create your own instance of numpy.random.RandomState() with your chosen seed. Do not use numpy.random.seed() except to work around inflexible libraries that do not let you pass around your own RandomState instance.

[~]
|1> from numpy.random import RandomState

[~]
|2> prng = RandomState(1234567890)

[~]
|3> prng.randint(-1, 2, size=10)
array([ 1,  1, -1,  0,  0, -1,  1,  0, -1, -1])

[~]
|4> prng2 = RandomState(1234567890)

[~]
|5> prng2.randint(-1, 2, size=10)
array([ 1,  1, -1,  0,  0, -1,  1,  0, -1, -1])