Return a sample (or samples) from the “standard normal” distribution.

Note

This is a convenience function for users porting code from Matlab, and wraps standard_normal. That function takes a tuple to specify the size of the output, which is consistent with other NumPy functions like numpy.zeros and numpy.ones.

Note

New code should use the standard_normal method of a Generator instance instead; please see the Quick Start.

If positive int_like arguments are provided, randn generates an array of shape (d0, d1, ..., dn), filled with random floats sampled from a univariate “normal” (Gaussian) distribution of mean 0 and variance 1. A single float randomly sampled from the distribution is returned if no argument is provided.

The dimensions of the returned array, must be non-negative. If no argument is given a single Python float is returned.

A (d0, d1, ..., dn)-shaped array of floating-point samples from the standard normal distribution, or a single such float if no parameters were supplied.

See also

Similar, but takes a tuple as its argument.

Also accepts mu and sigma arguments.

which should be used for new code.

Notes

For random samples from the normal distribution with mean mu and standard deviation sigma, use:

Examples

Two-by-four array of samples from the normal distribution with mean 3 and standard deviation 2.5: