CALL RANTRI Routine

Returns a random variate from a triangular distribution.

Category:	Random Number
Note:	Argument types for arguments that are updated must match in CALL routines. All argument types must be CHAR, VARCHAR, or NUMERIC. If the argument types do not match, a warning is issued to the log.

Table of Contents

Syntax

CALL RANTRI(seed, h, x);

Required Arguments

seed

is the seed value. A new value for seed is returned each time CALL RANTRI is executed.

Range	seed < 2³¹ – 1
Note	If seed ≤ 0, the time of day is used to initialize the seed stream.
See	Concepts and Pseudorandom Numbers

h

is a numeric SAS value.

Range	0<h<1

x

is a numeric SAS variable. A new value for the random variate x is returned each time CALL RANTRI is executed.

Details

The CALL RANTRI routine updates seed and returns a variate x generated from a triangular distribution on the interval (0,1) with parameter h, which is the modal value of the distribution.

By adjusting the seeds, you can force streams of variates to agree or disagree for some or all of the observations in the same, or subsequent, DATA steps.

The CALL RANTRI routine uses an inverse transform method applied to a RANUNI uniform variate.

For information about random number functions and CALL routines, see Using Random-Number Functions and CALL Routines in the DATA Step.

Comparisons

The CALL RANTRI routine gives greater control of the seed and random number streams than does the RANTRI function.

Example

This example uses the CALL RANTRI routine.

data u1(keep=x);
   seed=104;
   do i=1 to 5;
      call rantri(seed, .5, x); 
      output;
   end;
   call symputx('seed', seed);
run;
data u2(keep=x);
   seed=&seed;
   do i=1 to 5;
      call rantri(seed, .5, x); 
      output;
   end;
run;
data all;
   set u1 u2;
   z=rantri(104, .5);
run;
proc print label;
   label x='Separate Streams' z='Single Stream';
run;