Zsh Mailing List Archive Messages sorted by: Reverse Date, Date, Thread, Author

$RANDOM initial state doesn't change

X-seq: zsh-workers 34625
From: Timo Sirainen <tss@xxxxxx>
To: zsh-workers@xxxxxxx
Subject: $RANDOM initial state doesn't change
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 22:22:19 +0200
List-help: <mailto:zsh-workers-help@zsh.org>
List-id: Zsh Workers List <zsh-workers.zsh.org>
List-post: <mailto:zsh-workers@zsh.org>
Mailing-list: contact zsh-workers-help@xxxxxxx; run by ezmlm

I was trying to use $RANDOM for a simple 1/0 check, but it kept failing. After a while I realized a new subshell always gives the same $RANDOM result:

% for i in {1..10}; do echo `echo $RANDOM`; sleep 1; done
13490
13490
13490
13490
13490
13490
13490
13490
13490
13490

Surely it should be more random than that?

Tested with:

zsh 5.0.7 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
zsh 5.0.2 (x86_64-apple-darwin12.2.0)

Follow-Ups:
- Re: $RANDOM initial state doesn't change
  - From: Jan Larres

Messages sorted by: Reverse Date, Date, Thread, Author