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From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: random numbers in awk?
Message-ID: <16154@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 14 May 91 19:58:10 GMT
References: <1991Apr24.041134.14519@athena.mit.edu> <1136@mwtech.UUCP> <1991May13.221822.27731@gumby.dsd.TRW.COM>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 11

In article <1991May13.221822.27731@gumby.dsd.TRW.COM> suhre@shark.dsd.trw.com.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) writes:
-In article <1136@mwtech.UUCP> martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel) writes:
-+If you need larger numbers, you can, of course, call random twice, multiply
-+the result of the first call by 256, add the result of the second call, and
-+take the whole thing modulo the largest number you want. 
-Be advised that the operations mentioned (multiplication, modulo) will,
-in general, change the distribution of the random numbers.  That is, if you
-started with uniformly distributed random numbers, then what you will
-come out with will not be uniformly distributed.

Be advised that the procedure Martin suggested does preserve uniformity.