rand() man-page ambiguous or bug in glibc?

[Michael Kerrisk]

Eus wrote:
> Dear Michael,
> 
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 4:29 PM, "Michael Kerrisk" <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Folkert,
>>
>> I already responded to the earlier version of this report, and
>> described to you the fix for the man page (the evidence of your
>> program is correct; the man page was badly worded).  I'm not sure why
>> you are sending this message again?!
> 
> If you do not mind, would you please resend the described fix to this mailing list?
> It will certainly help me and others who would like to make the man pages better.
> 
> Thank you very much.
> 
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Michael
> 
> Best regards,
> Eus
> 
> 
>       
> 

here it is

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@googlemail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: rand() man-page ambiguous or bug in glibc?
To: Folkert van Heusden <folkert@vanheusden.com>
Cc: glibc-sc@gnu.org, mtk.manpages@gmail.com, udovdh@xs4all.nl


Hello Folkert,

What interest does the glibc steering committee have in this bug report?

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Folkert van Heusden
<folkert@vanheusden.com> wrote:
 > Hi,
 >
 > The man-page says:
 >        The rand() function returns a pseudo-random integer between 0
 >        and RAND_MAX.
 > "Between" says me that neither 0 or RAND_MAX should be returned but a
 > simple test-program tells me otherwise.

Yes -- it is indeed poorly worded.

 > #include <stdio.h>
 > #include <stdlib.h>
 > int main(int argc, char *argv[]){for(;;){long long int dummy=rand(); if
 > (dummy == 0 || dummy == RAND_MAX)printf("value is %d\n", dummy);} return
 > 0;}

At this time, I'm not taking entries for the IOCCC...

Anyway, I have changed the text to say:

"returns an integer in the range [0, RAND_MAX]"