Generating integer random numbers from power-law distribution

Is there a code to generate integer random numbers through power-law distribution of the form p(x)=x^-(alpha+1)?

thanks in advance

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try this: RANDRAW

[Sunstar]

Thanks a lot!

Answer 2

[Miguel Ángel]

I don't know if round,ceil or floor is correct, but in case this may be a way

n=1000;

p=rand(1,n);

alpha=0.1;

%inverse of distribution

%properties of logs %LOGa(n) = LOGb(N) / LOGb(a)

%~round/ceil/floor

x=round(log(p)/log(alpha+1));

[Sunstar]

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I cannot simply round or floor or ceil. I need to generate real integers.

Answer 3

[Roger Stafford]

The distribution you mention is equivalent to the zeta distribution with alpha+1 replaced by s. See the website

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_distribution

As Image Analyst has mentioned, there is a File Exchange contribution called 'randraw' which is located at:

 http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/7309-randraw

which claims to generate random numbers in accordance with fifty various distributions including the zeta distribution. It might be what you need.

[Sunstar]

Thank you! I am also considering Zipf generators.

Answer 4

[Weijia Chen]

I also meet the same problem. The minimum integer that zeta distribution can generate seems to be 1, but I hope 0 can be generated. Is there any other distributin can do this? Thank you