in reply to perl rand() function

Yes, it is zero inclusive, however, I wouldn't be waiting around for perl -e '1 while rand' to finish within my lifetime. 
   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print

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(tye)Re: perl rand() function
by tye (Sage) on Apr 16, 2002 at 15:02 UTC

    I'm so sorry that MeowChow was diagnosed as terminally ill with less than 1 second expected to live! I'm just glad the submit button got pressed before the end. 

    % perl -de 0
...
  DB<1> $c=0; print ''.localtime(),$/; $c++ while rand; print ''.local
+time(),$",$c,$/
Tue Apr 16 07:57:24 2002
Tue Apr 16 07:57:24 2002 55285

  DB<2> $c=0; print ''.localtime(),$/; $c++ while rand; print ''.local
+time(),$",$c,$/
Tue Apr 16 07:57:28 2002
Tue Apr 16 07:57:28 2002 82230

    [download]
    ;)

    Update: To be more informative rather than just humorous, I'll note that     perl -MConfig -e 'print $Config{randbits}' reports 15 for me. If I managed to build Perl such that this value got all the way up to 32, then I'd project MeowChow's life expectancy at a bit under 45 minutes. If I got that up to 48, then we'd be talking closer to 5 years. And if I got it up to 64, then I'd agree with MeowChow that waiting around 350,000 years wasn't worthwhile. (:

            - tye (no, I don't own a Cray)
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      tye, you absolutely slay me :) 
         MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print
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