in reply to How do I make a random shuffle deterministic?

Are there any faults in this? 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Sys::Hostname;

sub seed {
    my $string = shift;
    my $seed;

    my @ascii = map ord, split //, $string;
    while ( <@ascii> ) { $seed += $_ };

    srand $seed;
}

my $hostname = hostname;
seed ( $hostname );

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Re^2: How do I make a random shuffle deterministic?
by LanX (Saint) on Dec 05, 2012 at 17:15 UTC
    Most implementations of "srand" take an integer and will silently truncate decimal numbers. This means "srand(42)" will usually produce the same results as "srand(42.1)". To be safe, always pass "srand" an integer.
    most strings will evaluate to 0 ! 
      DB<116> srand 0
 => 1

  DB<117> rand
 => "0.17082803610629"

  DB<118> rand
 => "0.749901980484964"

  DB<119> srand hostname
 => 1

  DB<120> rand
 => "0.17082803610629"

  DB<121> rand
 => "0.749901980484964"

  DB<122> 0+ hostname
 => 0

    [download]
    You need a checksum to produce a (pseudo) unique integer. You could try

    $seed += ord($_) for split //, hostname

    But whats wrong with the IP?

    Cheers Rolf

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      The script has be as portable as possible. I'm not certain that the modules required to get an IP address will be available on an old version of perl that might be found on a Solaris or AIX host.

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        I just realized you had the same idea. But

        1. The sum of two strings can be identical, try "rolf" and "rofl" and "flor"

        2. for ( < @array > ) is dangerous nonsense, always do for (  @array  ) without glob

        3. if you wanna play save, try a system cmd to get a mac adress.

        4. You could determine a unique seed at installation time and store it in a module MyProject::Seed you use later. Like this you have full control (just edit the module) and you only need to fiddle once with the OS for a unique key.

        5. you could even request a unique key over web at installation time.

        Cheers Rolf

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        If the modules aren't installed, then install them. If the most recent version of a module doesn't work on your ancient system, use cpXXXan.
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