Re^2: What is the truth about srand()?

srand uses a seed which is not /dev/urandom.

Not sure how old your knowledge is, but this is no longer the case, as I demonstrated in my post.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

Comment on Re^2: What is the truth about srand()?

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Re^3: What is the truth about srand()? by doc_faustroll (Scribe) on Mar 29, 2006 at 15:59 UTC
My knowledge is creaky and old, and my typing is worse! So, I'm glad someone is awake with a sense of humor around here. I need good slap down. How about this: calling srand without an expression causes it to use a default which my be /dev/urandom in a best case. But you usually don't want to explicitly call srand unless you are going to supply your own seed EXPR. let rand do it for you! update: I'm going to crawl back into my cubicle like bed and come back when I can actually read your question and respond more thoughtfully. You are obviously using rand and were just wondering what the seed was. on *nix, it will most likely be /dev/urandom. But if a security guy is asking and you need crypto level randomness then my over obvious post might have some mete of merit.	[reply]

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Re^3: What is the truth about srand()?
by doc_faustroll (Scribe) on Mar 29, 2006 at 15:59 UTC

How about this: calling srand without an expression causes it to use a default which my be /dev/urandom in a best case.

But you usually don't want to explicitly call srand unless you are going to supply your own seed EXPR. let rand do it for you!

update: I'm going to crawl back into my cubicle like bed and come back when I can actually read your question and respond more thoughtfully. You are obviously using rand and were just wondering what the seed was. on *nix, it will most likely be /dev/urandom. But if a security guy is asking and you need crypto level randomness then my over obvious post might have some mete of merit.

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