Zig Zipf: A Zipf-Distributed RNG

Welcome to Zig Zipf! This is a Zig implementation of a fast, discrete, bounded, Zipf-distributed random number generator. Our implementation offers a robust and efficient solution for generating Zipf-distributed numbers, ideal for various applications ranging from statistical modeling, natural language processing, database benchmarking and load testing.

Background

Our work is a direct port of Jon Gjengset's zipf implementation in Rust, which can be found here. This Rust implementation is itself a port of the Apache Commons' RejectionInversionZipfSampler, originally written in Java. The foundational method for our implementation is sourced from the research by Wolfgang Hörmann and Gerhard Derflinger in their paper "Rejection-inversion to generate variates from monotone discrete distributions," published in ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS) 6.3 (1996).

Quick Start: Minimal Example

Get started quickly with this minimal example in Zig:

const std = @import("std");
const zipf = @import("zipf");

pub fn main() !void {
    var prng = std.rand.DefaultPrng.init(blk: {
        var seed: u64 = undefined;
        try std.posix.getrandom(std.mem.asBytes(&seed));
        break :blk seed;
    });
    const rand = prng.random();
    var zipf_distribution = try zipf.ZipfDistribution.init(1000000, 1.07); 

    const number = zipf_distribution.next(&rand);
    std.debug.print("number {d}", .{number});
}

Installation Guide

Add the Library with Zon

1. Declare zig zipf as a dependency in build.zig.zon:

.dependencies = .{
    .zipf = .{
        // This can be found by navigating to
        // https://github.com/toziegler/zig-zipf/releases and obtaining the
        // link to the tar file for the latest release.
        .url = "https://github.com/toziegler/zig-zipf/archive/refs/tags/v1.1.tar.gz",
        .hash = "122041950ce7abb1709e3e4a905429359724f11be50a223b77b9f7c1e4ce6200a942",
        // You may also leave out the .hash field. This will cause `zig build`
        // to tell you the correct hash when you go to build your project, and
        // you can include it here.
    },
},

Release Hashes:

• v1.1: 122041950ce7abb1709e3e4a905429359724f11be50a223b77b9f7c1e4ce6200a942
• v1.0: 122003ade97e0a690c28fb264aeedf6958ec57ee94087438dd6d1e7dbcffc7dab461

2. Add the module in build.zig

    const exe = b.addExecutable(.{
        .name = "zigzipfexample",
        .root_source_file = .{ .path = "src/main.zig" },
        .target = target,
        .optimize = optimize,
    });

+   const zipf = b.dependency("zipf", .{
+       .target = target,
+       .optimize = optimize,
+   });
+   exe.root_module.addImport("zipf", zipf.module("zipf"));

Add the Library with Git Submodules

1. Create a directory for libraries and add Zig Zipf as a submodule:

   mkdir libs && cd $_
   git submodule add git@github.com:toziegler/zig-zipf.git
   

2. In your build.zig.zon file, include the following:

   .dependencies = .{
       .zipf = .{
           .path = "./libs/zig-zipf/",
       },
   },
   

3. Finally, in your build.zig file, add the following lines:

   const zipf = b.dependency("zipf", .{
       .target = target,
       .optimize = optimize,
   });
   exe.root_module.addImport("zipf", zipf.module("zipf"));