Re: 2.4.19pre2aa1

Richard B. Johnson
2002-03-12T14:32:22Z

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 wli@holomorphy.com wrote:

> 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
>
Really?

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

Windows-2000/Professional isn't.