Xref: utzoo comp.sys.transputer:1941 comp.lang.fortran:3507
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!convex1.convex.com!rosenkra
From: rosenkra@convex1.convex.com (William Rosencranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer,comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Random numbers
Message-ID: <104560@convex.convex.com>
Date: 2 Aug 90 07:24:03 GMT
References: <483@keele.keele.ac.uk> <1990Jul24.133823.6608@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <3618@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
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In article <3618@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> rns@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert) writes:
>In <1990Jul24.133823.6608@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> shenkin@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Peter S. Shenkin) writes:
>>In article <483@keele.keele.ac.uk> writes:
>>>[about srand and rand]
>>C has no such thing.  UNIX has such things.  Rand and srand are outdated
>I don't know if all the C people have stopped reading this newsgroup, or
>if they are asleep, or just don't care, but I've waited about a week and

still here, and even awake!

>haven't seen anyone refute this.  What you say about rand() and srand() is
>just not true.  They certainly are a part of C.  That is they are a part of
>ANSI C and are a part of many (most? all?) pre-ANSI C libraries.  And they

according to harbison and steele at least, they are not really part of
the language, per se, but rather are part of a set of libraries, actually
"facilities", deemed standard by the ANSI C. if they were actually
part of the SYNTAX of the language, they would be listed in with the
reserved words (like for, if, else, while, etc). this is really
semantics and splitting hairs, however. C, unlike fortran, does not
provide language support for i/o, for example, but does provide i/o
pretty much "standard" via the libraries. ANSI C just makes things
like printf work the same with compliant libraries. i'd say that if
posix sez something about things like printf and rand, then it might
be stronger to say that they are more "unix" artifacts than C, if you
look at it that way. my green book is in the office so i can't really
answer this...

-bill
rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com

(my opinion, not my employer's...)

Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!c1yankee!rosenkra
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com