The process starts with a random seed that I provide, so that I can reproduce interesting results later.

The code you provided will make it hard for you to reproduce the results later.

The only thing that is predictable about rand() is that given the exact same input to srand(), you will get the exact same outputs from rand() every time you do it.

So:
srand(42) -> 78, 102, 4, 19, ...
srand(55) -> 8, 2, 66, 243, ...

There isn't anything wrong with calling srand() more than once, except that doing so will not make the output more random, it may even make it less random.

To reproduce the same outputs from rand(), you will have to call srand() with the same inputs in the same order every time, so this is a new part of state that you must save. On top of that, if the implementation of rand() changes in different versions of perl, you will not reproduce the same results on different versions.

In reply to Re: Can I seed srand() with results from rand()? by bunnyman
in thread Can I seed srand() with results from rand()? by blokhead

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.