Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60786&edit=1
ID: 60786 Updated by: ras...@php.net Reported by: jazzerman at gmail dot com Summary: Force seeding to srand different numbers still gives the same random number -Status: Open +Status: Bogus Type: Bug Package: *General Issues PHP Version: Irrelevant Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: Yes, no bug here. There are plenty of seeds that lead to the same initial random number. You will notice, however, that the second number in the sequence is different across the 2 seeds. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-01-18 06:17:05] phpmpan at mpan dot pl With 5.3.9 on Arch64 I'm getting 266557046 in both cases. Pair 53923 and 40348 causes the same bahaviour. And I believe there are many more. But none of this cases indicate a problem. It's normal that values are repeating in sequences. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-01-18 05:53:28] anon at anon dot anon I get this: 898434 822276816 351663 561490788 (Windows/PHP 5.3.2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-01-18 03:29:13] phpmpan at mpan dot pl I see no reason to assume that two pseudorandom sequences don't contain common values. "Random" doesn't mean that values in a single sequence or a set of sequences can't repeat. In fact it's perfectly normal and expected that the do share some elements. Othwerwise they would not be pseudorandom anymore. I must admit, however, that you're quite lucky guy. Finding by accident two different sequences that share a common element at the same position and, what's more interesting, it is the first element. What made you selecting 822276816 and 561490788 as the seeds? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-01-17 23:06:36] jazzerman at gmail dot com Description: ------------ srand( 822276816 ); $a = rand(123456, 987654); echo $a; echo "\n"; echo '822276816'; echo "\n"; srand( 561490788 ); $a = rand(123456, 987654); echo $a; echo "\n"; echo '561490788'; echo "\n"; Test script: --------------- <?php srand( 822276816 ); $a = rand(123456, 987654); echo $a; echo "\n"; echo '822276816'; echo "\n"; srand( 561490788 ); $a = rand(123456, 987654); echo $a; echo "\n"; echo '561490788'; echo "\n"; ?> Expected result: ---------------- Since I'm seeding to srand different integers, it should echo two different random numbers. Actual result: -------------- It echos the same numbers even when seeding to srand two different integers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60786&edit=1