Re: use of rand() in zsh

[Clinton Bunch <cdbunch@zentaur.org>]

On 10/10/2022 8:27 PM, Clinton Bunch wrote:
> On 10/10/2022 8:14 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 10, 2022 at 4:38 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> 
>> wrote:
>>> Is there a reason that zsh goes out of the way (srand_deterministic) to
>>> use the least random "random" function on modern Unix?
>>       The values of RANDOM form an intentionally-repeatable 
>> pseudo-random
>>       sequence; subshells that reference RANDOM will result in identical
>>       pseudo-random values unless the value of RANDOM is referenced or
>>       seeded in the parent shell in between subshell invocations.
>>
>> This is e.g. so you aren't surprised by referencing $RANDOM inside
>> $(...) and getting a different result.
>
> Well, I guess that explains why it uses rand, but doesn't really 
> explain to me why you'd *want* this behavior.  I would expect to get a 
> different value in a subshell than I got in the parent shell.  I'm 
> supposedly looking for random numbers.
>
>  I guess I side with OpenBSD who changed the default behavior of rand().
>
>
I wonder if it wouldn't be worthwhile to create a module that gave 
access to better sources of random numbers on the systems that support them.