RE: Random Number in PRG: example

True, I added the time seed shortly after posting the example, and I too
realized that Hans' example was repeating sequences.  It also occurs to me
that seeding by TIME (6.0) could be a bad idea is the program runs at the
same time every night (scheduled job). It's not hard to imagine the same
seed value being used repeatedly...... perhaps something more random like
milliseconds....

Eric DeLong

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Cunnane [mailto:paul@cunnane.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 7:57 AM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Random Number in PRG: example


Caveat: every time you run this, you will get the same sequence of `random'
numbers.  To get more truly pseudo-random numbers, seed the generator with
(say) the result of the TIME opcode.

I also tried this code without seeding the generator (commented out the
callp srand line), and got different, random-looking number sequences.
Maybe this is the best approach?

--
Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: "DeLong, Eric" <EDeLong@Sallybeauty.com>
To: <RPG400-L@midrange.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 9:01 PM
Subject: RE: Random Number in PRG: example


> Ugh! That might work ok, but it's a bit dated..... If you're using RPGIV,
> give this a spin.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> H dftactgrp(*no) bnddir('QC2LE')
> D rand            pr            10i 0 extproc('rand')
> D srand           pr                  extproc('srand')
> D                               10i 0 value
> D num             s             10i 0
> D i               s             10i 0
> C                   callp     srand(123)
> C                   for       i = 1 to 10
> C                   eval      num = rand
> C     num           dsply
> C                   endfor
> C                   eval      *inlr = *on
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> This was right out of the archives (thanks Hans). SRAND seeds the random
> generator, and RAND returns the random numbers. MUCH  simpler than the
> RPGIII code you found.
>
> hth,
> Eric DeLong


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