Why doesn't repeatedly generate reproducible r

Question

I have some functions that require a series of random numbers so I've taken some simple primitives such as #(inc (g/uniform 0 n)) and I can't seem to generate a reproducible series of random numbers, even though I'm rebinding *rnd*, unless I generate them as shown below. I can't imagine that's the best way, so can anyone point out how to do it better?

Note: I run each example below three times as shown to produce the given results.

(ns example.show
  (:require [clojure.data.generators :as g]))


(binding [g/*rnd* (java.util.Random. 42)]
  (take 10 (repeatedly #(inc (g/uniform 0 n))))

=> (9 4 5 4 4 5 1 8 2 9)

=> (2 1 1 6 3 10 10 4 1 9)

=> (10 4 7 8 9 6 10 1 8 3)


(binding [g/*rnd* (java.util.Random. 42)]
  (g/reps 10 #(inc (g/uniform 0 n)))

=> (3 9 4 6 3 8 6 6 5 4)

=> (7 8 4 7 7 5 7 4 8 7)

=> (2 8 7 8 8 8 9 2 6 5)

;; This seems to work
(binding [g/*rnd* (java.util.Random. 42)]
  (letfn [(roll [n] #(inc (g/uniform 0 n)))]
    [((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10)) ((roll 10))]))

=> [8 7 4 3 7 10 4 3 5 8]

=> [8 7 4 3 7 10 4 3 5 8]

=> [8 7 4 3 7 10 4 3 5 8]

Answer 1

Because of laziness. You return from binding before the sequence is realized. Therefore, the lazy sequence never sees the bindings you set. One solution would be to force realization with a doall on the sequence inside the binding.

Answer 2

If, as your comment on the other answer indicates, you want to preserve the laziness, then you would need to apply the binding in the function passed to repeatedly, capturing a seed that you created outside of the lazy seq. For instance:

(defn rand-seq [seed]
  (let [r (java.util.Random. seed)]
    (repeatedly #(binding [g/*rnd* r]
                   (inc (g/uniform 0 10))))))

(take 10 (rand-seq 42))
#=> (8 7 4 3 7 10 4 3 5 8)

(take 10 (rand-seq 42))
#=> (8 7 4 3 7 10 4 3 5 8)