Re: 2.4.19pre2aa1

[wli@holomorphy.com]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 08:33:23AM -0500, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> This is a simple random number generator. It takes a pointer to your
> own private long, somewhere in your code, and returns a long random
> number with a period of 0xfffd4011. I ran a program for about a
> year, trying to find a magic number that will produce a longer
> period.
> 
> You could add a ldiv and return the modulus to set hash-table limits.
> ANDs are not good because, in principle, you could get many numbers
> in which all the low bits are zero.
> 
> 
> The advantage of this simple code is it works quickly. The disadvantages
> are, of course, its not portable and a rotation of a binary number
> is not a mathematical function, lending itself to rigorous analysis.

Would you mind explaining what the point of this is? AFAICT this is
meaningless noise inspired by the words "/dev/random".


Bill