[PATCH] random: range is not portably RAND_MAX [BZ #7003]

John Marshall John.W.Marshall@glasgow.ac.uk
Fri Jun 26 12:29:53 GMT 2020


On other platforms, RAND_MAX (which is the range of rand(3))
may differ from 2^31-1 (which is the range of random(3)).
---
Second ping as per [1] for this trivial comment fix that completes
the fix for BZ #7003 [2] made in 2013. This version of the patch
keeps the "between ... inclusive" wording; see the previous version
if avoiding writing "2^31-1" is preferred.

I am not FSF copyright assigned, but I believe this change is trivial
enough not to need it.

[1] https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Contribution%20checklist
[2] https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=7003

 stdlib/stdlib.h | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/stdlib/stdlib.h b/stdlib/stdlib.h
index f971df4247..3aa27a9d25 100644
--- a/stdlib/stdlib.h
+++ b/stdlib/stdlib.h
@@ -397,7 +397,7 @@ extern long int a64l (const char *__s)
    `initstate' and `setstate' functions are those from BSD Unices.
    The `rand' and `srand' functions are required by the ANSI standard.
    We provide both interfaces to the same random number generator.  */
-/* Return a random long integer between 0 and RAND_MAX inclusive.  */
+/* Return a random long integer between 0 and 2^31-1 inclusive.  */
 extern long int random (void) __THROW;
 
 /* Seed the random number generator with the given number.  */
-- 
2.18.2


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