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From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: I'm confused about this
Keywords: getpid(), srand
Message-ID: <14548@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 21 Nov 90 16:06:43 GMT
References: <3945@vela.acs.oakland.edu> <1990Nov21.025459.22201@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 10

In article <1990Nov21.025459.22201@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> gordon@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon) writes:
>	So, the random-number generator is seeded with another random number.
>This ensures very random results.

No, what it does is make the generated sequence differ for different
executions of the same program.  (Nonreproducability.)  This is unwise
during development of the program but can be useful in production use
of the program (depending on the use of the generated sequence).

How "random" the sequence is is normally unaffected by the seeding.