C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\bugrep0-34706349

[p5pRT]

Migrated from rt.perl.org#875 (status was 'resolved')

Searchable as RT875$

[p5pRT]

From MCVAYRA@mail.northgrum.com

The rand() function should produce a specific, repeatable sequence
of number given some specific seed value passed to srand(). I have
found that all the Unix ports of Perl, versions 5.004 and 5.005, do
behave in this manner but the Intel ports do not. Using the simple
program

  srand('028350);
  print rand(), "\n";

from the command line the following results were obtained.

======== Win95
perl -e "srand('028350');print rand();"
0.826446533203125
perl -v
This is perl, version 5.005_03 built for MSWin32-x86-object

perl -e "srand('028350');print rand();"
0.6142578125
This is perl, version 5.004_02

======== Linux (Intel)
perl -e 'srand("028350");print rand(),"\n";'
0.0450114482082427
perl -v
This is perl, version 5.005_03 built for i686-linux

======== AIX
perl -e 'srand("028350");print rand(),"\n";'
0.053741455078125
perl -v
This is perl, version 5.004_01

perl -e 'srand("028350"); print rand(),"\n";'
0.053741455078125
perl -v
This is perl, version 5.005_02 built for aix

======== DEC Unix
perl -e 'srand("028350");print rand(),"\n";'
0.053741455078125
perl -v
This is perl, version 5.004_01

======== HPUX
perl -e 'srand("028350");print rand(),"\n";'
0.053741455078125
perl -v
This is perl, version 5.004_01

Perl Info

Site configuration information for perl 5.00503:

Summary of my perl5 (5.0 patchlevel 5 subversion 03) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=MSWin32, osvers=4.0, archname=MSWin32-x86-object
    uname=''
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=undef
    usethreads=undef useperlio=undef d_sfio=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='cl.exe', optimize='-Od -MD -DNDEBUG -TP -GX', gccversion=
    cppflags='-DWIN32'
    ccflags ='-Od -MD -DNDEBUG -TP -GX -DWIN32 -D_CONSOLE -DNO_STRICT
-DHAVE_DES_FCRYPT -DPERL_OBJECT'
    stdchar='char', d_stdstdio=define, usevfork=false
    intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8
    d_longlong=undef, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=10
    alignbytes=8, usemymalloc=n, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='link', ldflags ='-nologo -nodefaultlib -release -machine:x86'
    libpth="D:\usr\lib\core"
    libs= oldnames.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib  winspool.lib
comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib  oleaut32.lib netapi32.lib
uuid.lib wsock32.lib mpr.lib winmm.lib  version.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib
PerlCRT.lib
    libc=D:\usr\lib\core\PerlCRT.lib, so=dll, useshrplib=yes,
libperl=perlcore.lib
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_win32.xs, dlext=dll, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' '
    cccdlflags=' ', lddlflags='-dll -nologo -nodefaultlib -release
-machine:x86'

Locally applied patches:
    ACTIVEPERL_LOCAL_PATCHES_ENTRY


@INC for perl 5.00503:
    D:/usr/lib
    D:/usr/site/lib
    .


Environment for perl 5.00503:
    HOME=D:\WinCVS
    LANG (unset)
    LANGUAGE (unset)
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (unset)
    LOGDIR (unset)
 
PATH=E:\VISUALCAFE\JAVA\BIN;D:\WINCVS;D:\USR\BIN;C:\NOVELL\CLIENT32;C:\WINDO
WS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;D:\BIN;C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\POWERS~1;D:\TCL\BIN;D:\ORA
WIN\BIN;D:\ORAWIN95\BIN;D:\QUANTUM;C:\LANCD;E:\IMNNQ_95
    PERL_BADLANG (unset)
    SHELL (unset)

[p5pRT]

From The RT System itself

comparing unix ports and intel ports is weird. Probably means win32 and unix.

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

different platforms may use different rand() functions.

As long as the sequence generated by​:

srand( 10 );
for (1..3) { print rand(); }

is consistent between multiple runs on one platform, this isn't a bug.

Obviously - the above snippet should be extendable to any srand value or any length sequence.

The idea _is_ to generate a random number, not something that can be specified.