Bug #4590: documentation is wrong for srand

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: r31311

[Cezary (Cezary Baginski)]

=begin
'ri srand' (in random.c) suggests that passing 0 generates a seed number:

If number is omitted or zero, seeds the generator using a combination of (...)}

Currently, this isn't true (0 is a valid seed):

srand(10); srand; srand
=> 290577086691033874500011807841900203857
srand(10); srand(0); srand(0)
=> 0

It should be:

If number is omitted, seeds the generator using a combination of (...)

I would normally create a patch for this, but wouldn't it be less surprising if srand accepted nil for generating the random seed?

Instead of code like:

prev_seed = (seed == nil ? srand : srand(seed))

we would have:

prev_seed = srand(seed)

Would this be a good idea?

Currently this fails, because an integer is expected:

srand(nil)
TypeError: can't convert nil into Integer

=end

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

• Status changed from Open to Closed
• % Done changed from 0 to 100

=begin
This issue was solved with changeset r31316.
Cezary, thank you for reporting this issue.
Your contribution to Ruby is greatly appreciated.
May Ruby be with you.

---

• random.c (rb_f_srand): fix rdoc: srand(0)'s 0 is a seed.
  [ruby-core:35833] fixes #4590
  =end