Re: (random t) always returns the same number under HP-UX 10.20

[Eli Zaretskii]

On 3 Dec 2001, Klaus Zeitler wrote:

>     >> (random t) always returns the same number when I call it
>     >> right after starting emacs -q. According to the docu this call should 
> set a
>     >> random seed from the current time and pid.
>     Eli> 
>     Eli> What happens if you invoke (random t) and then (random 100000)
>     Eli> repeatedly?
> 3 times (random t) gives always this sequence of numbers:
>   46095250 -74119605 -46522877 -114711201

You are not supposed to call (random t) more than once per a random
sequence.  (random t) simply calls `srandom' (or a similar function),
which seeds the RNG.  The real sequence comes from the subsequent
calls to `random' whose argument is anything _but_ t.

> 3 times (random 100000)
>   17174 72397 82679 57274
> 
> alternating (random t) and (random 100000) 2 times gives:
>   46095250 72397 -46522877 57274

Could you please look at src/s/hpux10.h and src/sysdep.c, and see what
macros related to random are defined in your build?  (Search for
"random" case-insensitively in these two files.)

Also, what are the prototypes of `srandom', `random', `srand48', and
`lrand48' on your HP-UX machine (should be in stdlib.h)?  Perhaps by
comparing the prototypes with the above-mentioned Emacs files, you
could find some discrepancy that explains the problems?

Alternatively, if you could give me an SSH login on that machine, I
will try to investigate.  SSH public key is available upon request.