The type of PRNG states.

Create a new state and initialize it with the given seed.

Create a new state and initialize it with a system-dependent low-entropy seed.

Return a copy of the given state.

These functions are the same as the basic functions, except that they use (and update) the given PRNG state instead of the default one.

Serializes the PRNG state into an immutable sequence of bytes. See of_binary_string for deserialization.

The string type is intended here for serialization only, the encoding is not human-readable and may not be printable.

Note that the serialization format may differ across OCaml versions.

• since 5.1

Deserializes a byte sequence obtained by calling to_binary_string. The resulting PRNG state will produce the same random numbers as the state that was passed as input to to_binary_string.

• raises Failure

  if the input is not in the expected format.

Note that the serialization format may differ across OCaml versions.

Unlike the functions provided by the Marshal module, this function either produces a valid state or fails cleanly with a Failure exception. It can be safely used on user-provided, untrusted inputs.

• since 5.1