From: brabuhr@...
Date: 2006-11-29T03:07:39+09:00
Subject: Re: rand random. You've got to be kidding

On 11/28/06, Smgspices@aol.com <Smgspices@aol.com> wrote:
> Surely it must be possible to initialize rand with current date and time.
> Documents seem to indicate this is done with rand(0) or srand with no value. I
> have tried both methods and I get the same tired old sequence of numbers. I
> would write my own random number generator except I don't know how to get a
> numeric value out of Time.

Can you post the code that isn't working for you?

http://www.rubycentral.com/ref/ref_m_kernel.html#rand
http://www.rubycentral.com/ref/ref_m_kernel.html#srand

> ruby -e 'print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.346093491828657       0.0992270243895501      0.491676115802907
> ruby -e 'print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.11466702118189        0.0119319523512537      0.111031191235015
> ruby -e 'print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.282694845926778       0.570101702949362       0.303077309354919

> ruby -e 'srand(1); print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.417022004702574       0.720324493442158       0.000114374817344887
> ruby -e 'srand(1); print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.417022004702574       0.720324493442158       0.000114374817344887
> ruby -e 'srand(1); print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.417022004702574       0.720324493442158       0.000114374817344887

> ruby -e 'srand(2); print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.435994902142004       0.0259262318278913      0.549662477878709
> ruby -e 'srand(2); print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.435994902142004       0.0259262318278913      0.549662477878709
> ruby -e 'srand(2); print "#{rand}\t#{rand}\t#{rand}\n"'
0.435994902142004       0.0259262318278913      0.549662477878709

> ruby -v
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i586-linux]