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?

Reply via email to