From: Orion Hunter <orion2480@...>
Date: 2003-07-30T03:06:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Generating random numbers?

Speaking of random numbers... I encountered a problem this morning with 
them.

My problem is that I am getting the same "random number" repeated in 
sequence.  For example, my code looks something like this

100.times{
    rand = Kernel.rand( 50 )
    ... #do something with the random number
}

And I end up getting a sequence of random numbers like this:
5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,89,89,89,89,89,2,2,2,78,78,78,78,44,44,44,44,44... etc

Strangely enough, doing the following in IRB does not replicate the problem:

100.times{
puts Kernel.rand(100)
}

nor does $> ruby -e '100.times{ puts Kernel.rand(100) }'

BTW, I am using 1.8.0.

Matt

I've tried seeding it each time with Time.now.usec, but that seems to make 
it worse (which makes sense, because it probably takes less than a micro 
second between each generation).

Any suggestions?


>From: "Brandon D. Valentine" <brandon@dvalentine.com>
>Reply-To: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
>To: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org (ruby-talk ML)
>Subject: Re: Generating random numbers?
>Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 06:31:34 +0900
>
>On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:19:58AM +0900, Harry Ohlsen wrote:
> > Can someone remind me of the name for the class/method for generating 
>random
> > numbers?  I did a quick grep through the library and a google, but all I
> > found was a project that plans to improve the random number 
>generator(s).
>
>Kernel::rand
>
>Seed it via:
>
>Kernel::srand
>
>HTH,
>
>Brandon D. Valentine
>--
>brandon@dvalentine.com                                 
>http://www.geekpunk.net
>Pseudo-Random Googlism:  texas is the reason do you know who you are?
>

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