I need help understanding the Bash manual page:
RANDOM Each time this parameter is referenced, a random integer between
0 and 32767 is generated. The sequence of random numbers may be
initialized by assigning a value to RANDOM. If RANDOM is unset,
it loses its special properties, even if it is subsequently
reset.The Korn shell has the same manual page statement, more or less. This is the current behavior: $ RANDOM=1 $ echo $RANDOM 16838 $ echo $RANDOM && echo $RANDOM 8312 20622 $ RANDOM=1 $ echo $RANDOM 16838 I don't understand "If RANDOM is unset, it loses its special properties, even if it is subsequently reset.". From what I see of the behavior, $RANDOM is not random if you initialize it yourself, but neither is any pseudo random number generator. What I'm wondering is whether the "seed" should be saved only for the session, so that 'RANDOM=1 ; echo $RANDOM' is not the same in every session... that the old seed is lost forever if RANDOM is reinitialized. It's easy to change Bash to make $RANDOM random whether you initialize it or not (the initialization would actually be ignored). Is there any practical use for having 'RANDOM=1 ; echo $RANDOM' the same on every system? If $RANDOM is going to actually be random, then the manual page needs to be modified to reflect that. robert
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