Jakob Andreas Baerentzen wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 20 May 1998, R. Brock Lynn wrote:
> >
> > It is supposed to generate random integers in a certain range specified by two
> > endpoints inclusive. i.e.: randomit 10 100 will send to stdout a random long int
> > between 10 and 100. should work for negative numbers too.
> >
> > My code is included. Please give me some comments!
>
> There is one little problem that I have run into before
>
>
> srand ( time ( 0 ) ) ;
>
> initializes the random number generator with the current time - and the
> time is measured in seconds. This means that if you call randomit two
> times during one second, you get the same random number.
>
> You should, probably, use
>
> srand(times(0));
>
> times(0) returns the number of clock ticks since system was brought up,
> and ``a tick'' seems to be one hundredth of a second.
>
> Andreas
>
...or srand(times(0)^getpid())
Better yet is to use /dev/random, if available. Times() has the
feature (is it a disadvantage? I don't know.) that it is monotonic
increasing.
Dave
--
Is the true purpose of Unix its use, or its administration?