(tye)Re: Generating Random Integers

It is fine to set the seed with srand(), but if you want good randomness, then don't do it quite that way because it clobbers the (probably better) seed that modern versions of Perl pick for you. Instead, add your seed into the mix:

srand( rand(~0) ^
  (time() ^ (time() % $]) ) ^ exp(length($0))**$$);
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- tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

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(fongsaiyuk)Re: (tye)Re: Generating Random Integers by fongsaiyuk (Pilgrim) on Jan 03, 2001 at 21:29 UTC
sweet! my font is a little screwy, but is that a tilde in front of the "0" in `rand(~0)`? I've not seen that before... What does it do?	[reply] [d/l]
(tye)Re2: Generating Random Integers by tye (Sage) on Jan 03, 2001 at 21:34 UTC
Yes, tilde zero (~0) is a bit-wise "not" of 0, that is, an integer with all bits set. So it gets interpretted as an unsigned value and tells rand() to give back a random pattern of bits (a random number between 0 and (~0)-1, inclusive). Gee, I guess I should be using `rand(1+~0)` from now on. Oh well, that would only be a minor improvement. (: - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")	[reply] [d/l]