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calc/help/seed
Landon Curt Noll a31078bbec Remove all RCS @(#) lines and RCS strings
Some folks might think: “you still use RCS”?!?  And we will say,
hey, at least we switched from SCCS to RCS back in … I think it was
around 1994 ... at least we are keeping up! :-) :-) :-)

Logs say that SCCS version 18 became RCS version 19 on 1994 March 18.

RCS served us well.  But now it is time to move on.   And so we are
switching to git.

Calc releases produce a lot of file changes.  In the 125 releases
of calc since 1996, when I started managing calc releases, there
have been 15473 file mods!
2017-05-23 01:33:23 -07:00

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NAME
seed - return a value that may be used to seed a pseudo-random generator
SYNOPSIS
seed()
TYPES
return integer
DESCRIPTION
Generate a pseudo-random seed based on a collection of system and process
information. The seed() builtin function returns a value:
0 <= seed < 2^64
IMPORTANT WARNING:
It should be pointed out that the information collected by seed
is almost certainly non-chaotic. This function is likely not
suitable for applications (such as cryptographic applications)
where the unpredictability of seeds is critical. For such critical
applications, LavaRnd should be used. See the URL:
http://www.LavaRnd.org/
for information about seeding a pseudo-random number generator
(such as rand() or random()) with the cryptographic hash of the
digitization of chaotic system.
Given the above warning, this builtin function produces a seed that is
suitable for most applications that desire a different pseudo-random
sequence each time they are run.
The return value of this builtin function should NOT be considered
a random or pseudo-random value. The return value should be used
as an argument to a seed function such as srand() or srandom().
EXAMPLE
; print srand(seed())
RAND state
; print srandom(seed())
RAND state
LIMITS
none
LINK LIBRARY
NUMBER *pseudo_seed(void)
SEE ALSO
seed, srand, randbit, isrand, rand, random, srandom, israndom
## Copyright (C) 1999 Landon Curt Noll
##
## Calc is open software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
## the terms of the version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License
## as published by the Free Software Foundation.
##
## Calc is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
## ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
## or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General
## Public License for more details.
##
## A copy of version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License is
## distributed with calc under the filename COPYING-LGPL. You should have
## received a copy with calc; if not, write to Free Software Foundation, Inc.
## 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
##
## Under source code control: 1999/10/03 10:04:29
## File existed as early as: 1999
##
## chongo <was here> /\oo/\ http://www.isthe.com/chongo/
## Share and enjoy! :-) http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/comp/calc/