In a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), a full cycle or full period is the behavior of a PRNG over its set of valid states.
The restrictions on the parameters of a PRNG for it to possess a full cycle are known only for certain types of PRNGs, such as linear congruential generators and linear-feedback shift registers.
There is no general method to determine whether a PRNG algorithm is full-cycle short of exhausting the state space, which may be exponentially large compared to the size of the algorithm's internal state.
Given a random number seed that is greater or equal to zero, a total sample size greater than 1, and an increment coprime to the total sample size, a full cycle can be generated with the following logic.
Each nonnegative number smaller than the sample size occurs exactly once.