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Hello Mike, Its time to read Chapter 3 of Knuth's second volume. Neither CEERAN0 nor the C-language rand() function generate truly 'random' numbers. They generate psuedo-random numbers which are generated deterministically i.e., there is a direct relationship between one number and the previous number (and indeed the seed value). The numbers are not actually random, they just appear to be random. If you start with the same seed you will get the same sequence of numbers. I believe both the above functions use different methods for generating the numbers, however they are uniformly distributed and may be considered statistically random. Note that rand() returns integers in the range 0 to RAND_MAX (32767) while CEERAN0 returns real numbers in the range 0 to 1. You may be able to achieve your goal by changing the seed value on successive iterations. The seed could also be random number. CEERAN0 allows you to use the current GMT as the seed by specifying a seed of zero -- you will need to set the seed to zero on each iteration since CEERAN0 updates the seed variable in preparation for the next call. If neither of these functions are unsuitable for your purposes then you'll need to create your own generator but note the following quote from Knuth "... random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random ..." Finally, something slightly more interesting than the free-format drivel! Regards, Simon Coulter. «»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«» «» FlyByNight Software AS/400 Technical Specialists «» «» Eclipse the competition - run your business on an IBM AS/400. «» «» «» «» Phone: +61 3 9419 0175 Mobile: +61 0411 091 400 «» «» Fax: +61 3 9419 0175 mailto: shc@flybynight.com.au «» «» «» «» Windoze should not be open at Warp speed. «» «»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«» +--- | This is the RPG/400 Mailing List! | To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com. | To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com. | To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com +---
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