On changing rand(3) to random(3) in awk(1)

[Chenguang Li]

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John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> wrote:

> [omitted] 
>
> Can you please open a bug report with the latest patch?
> 
> Xin Li (delphij@) imported the most recent awk version.  Ideally this patch 
> would go upstream and not just be a local patch.  Perhaps Xin can help with 
> that?

Sorry for not keeping you guys updated, actually I did open a bug report[1] a
few days ago. I also wrote Brian Kernighan an email with details and a link to
this thread then, as Erik suggested. He replied:

> I've read the thread on rand vs random; it's interesting.
> It sounds like replacing rand with random would be a good
> idea regardless, and probably it's good to replace the
> RAND_MAX with an explicit 2^31+1.
> 
> I don't think that it would hurt to also use RAND_MAX+1UL
> with rand() as an interim measure.  You're right that zero
> does come up twice as often as any other value.  Probably
> doesn't make much difference in practice, but better to do
> things right when possible.
> 
> I'll add this to my list of things to try to fix up, which
> is getting longer than it should, but I've been busy on
> other things and keep pushing awk over the horizon.

So I guess this would eventually be patched upstream.

[1] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=193147

Chenguang Li

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