[Functional Programming] Build a Linear congruential generator

What we are going to do in this post, is to build a random number generator. As you might know that Javascript provides Math.random(), but the problem for Math.random() is you cannot control it, what we actully want is a number generator which can provide the same sequence of random numbers. Imaging we have a game, everytime we start the game it will genarte 

[5,7,9,8,1,3....]

Second times, it runs the game, it produce the same output: [5,7,9,8,1,3....]. This kind of number generator is called: Linear congruential generator 

 

We are going to use 'crocks/State' to coding it:

const log = require('./lib/log');

const State = require('crocks/State');
const B = require('crocks/combinators/composeB');
const K = require('crocks/combinators/constant');
const prop = require('crocks/Maybe/prop');
const option = require('crocks/pointfree/option');
const {modify, get} = State;
const assign = require('crocks/helpers/assign');

// pluckSeed :: Integer -> Object -> Integer
const pluckSeed =
    def => B(option(def), prop('seed'))

// rando : Integer -> State Object Float
const rando = x => {
    const seed = (1103515245 * x + 12345) & 0x7fffffff
    const value = (seed >>> 16) / 0x7fff;

    return modify(assign({seed})) // update the seed Pair(_, seed)
        .map(K(value)); // update the value Pair(value, seed)
}

// pullRandom :: Integer -> State Object Float
const pullRandom =
    defSeed => get(pluckSeed(defSeed)).chain(rando);

// limitIndx :: Integer -> Float -> Integer
const limitIndx = len => x => (x * len) | 0;

const seed = 76;
log(
    State.of(seed)
    .chain(pullRandom) // 'Pair( 0.13864558854945525, { seed: 297746555 } )'
    .map(limitIndx(52)) // 'Pair( 7, { seed: 297746555 } )'
    .runWith({seed: 10})
);

 

Let's explain some operator a little bit:

const B = require('crocks/combinators/composeB');

'composeB', the same as 'compose' read from right to left, the only difference is it only accepts two functions! no more no less.

// pluckSeed :: Integer -> Object -> Integer
const pluckSeed =
    def => B(option(def), prop('seed'))

'pluckSeed', we use 'prop' from 'Maybe', to get value from Maybe, we need to use 'option', if Maybe returns Nothing, then we use the default value from 'option(def)'.

 

const State = require('crocks/State');
const {modify, get} = State;

// rando : Integer -> State Object Float
const rando = x => {
    const seed = (1103515245 * x + 12345) & 0x7fffffff
    const value = (seed >>> 16) / 0x7fff;

    return modify(assign({seed})) // update the seed Pair(_, seed)
        .map(K(value)); // update the value Pair(value, seed)
}

'modify' it a constructor' method for 'State' moand, the State monad is constructed by Pair moand:

State(Pair(a, s))

On the left side, 'a' is the new state which come from 's' after mapping to some function. 's' is the origianl state.

When you call 'modify', it is actually modifying the right side 's':

modify(assign({seed})) // update the seed Pair(_, seed)

When you call .map(fn), it is change the value on the left side of Pair:

    return modify(assign({seed})) // update the seed Pair(_, seed)
        .map(constant(value)); // update the value Pair(value, seed)