char2seed {codename} R Documentation

## Convert a character vector to a numeric integer for setting a reproducible seed

### Description

char2seed() is a parlor trick for converting a character vector into an integer for the sake of setting a reproducible seed.

### Usage

char2seed(x)

char2seed_v1(x)


### Arguments

 x a character vector

### Details

Interested users can see how this works. Namely, letters (and numbers) in the character vector are assigned corresponding numbers. In char2seed(), these numbers are concatenated together an divided over 1 minus the absolute maximum number that R can handle by default (2^32). The remainder of this division is what ultimately becomes the reproducible seed.

In char2seed_v1(), these numbers are added together and then exponentiated to create a really big number. The number is divided over 1 minus the absolute maximum number that R can handle by default (2^32). The remainder of this division is what ultimately becomes the reproducible seed.

The nature of this parlor trick means there's a possibility, however small, that two different character vectors can return the same reproducible seed. This happened before https://github.com/svmiller/codename/issues/1, which is why I changed the function for generating the seed and moved the old function to char2seed_v1().

The function may warn of "loss of accuracy", but this just means you supplied it a really long character vector.

### Value

char2seed() takes a character vector and returns a reproducible seed for you to use for whatever purpose. It's used internally in codename(). char2seed_v1() does the same, but using the older method from v. 0.1.0 and v. 0.2.0 of this release.

Steven V. Miller

### Examples


char2seed("ABCDEF")
char2seed("Go Bucks!")
char2seed("My Project Title")



[Package codename version 0.4.0 Index]