On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Statux wrote:

> All calls to rand() and srand() from the Standard C Library (libc, glibc,
> etc) require kernel level support in order to work. That's what this is.
> It has to do with /dev/random, etc.

While it does have to do with /dev/random, it has nothing to do with
rand(), srand(), random(), or srandom().  These are pseudo-random number
generators and don't need true random input.  In fact these functions are
*required* to produce the same sequence of "random" numbers each time they
are seeded with the same value.  (If you don't supply a seed, they are
seeded with 1.)

If you want *real* randomness (e.g., for crypto purposes), or if you want
a truly random seed for rand() and random(), you can get it by reading
from /dev/random.

> On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, adrian kok wrote:
>
> > Hi all
> >
> > What is the meaning of initialize the generate random
> > number when red hat starts in boot time
> >
> > Thank you

-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs



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