Related: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/1717 https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/1717

On Dec 11, 2022, at 9:59 PM, pd-list-request@lists.iem.at wrote:

Message: 2 Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2022 16:55:40 +0100 From: Thomas Mayer <thomas@residuum.org mailto:thomas@residuum.org> To: pd-list@lists.iem.at mailto:pd-list@lists.iem.at Subject: [PD] [random] and seed value Message-ID: <478be1b4-8f1c-ee0f-d11c-889b51371243@residuum.org mailto:478be1b4-8f1c-ee0f-d11c-889b51371243@residuum.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Hello,

currently [random] uses a fixed value for initialisation. This leads to the same sequence of values all the time.

https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/c0cd34924a50bdd1cc37dfb6b01f9be0... https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/c0cd34924a50bdd1cc37dfb6b01f9be02ad8a78b/src/x_misc.c#L55

My guess is, that most users probably expect at least different seed values every time.

Maybe the help file should explicitely state the behaviour or a different way for deriving the initial seed should be used, e.g. taking the local time. Or a better PRNG could be used as well.

If we take the solution to initialize [random] with a different seed each time, an explanation on how to revert to the old behaviour of a seed value of 1489853723 should be mentioned in the help.

I could tackle that, but would like a discussion about that before coding.

Thanks, Thomas --

Dan Wilcox @danomatika http://twitter.com/danomatika danomatika.com http://danomatika.com/ robotcowboy.com http://robotcowboy.com/