Re: Still wondering about random numbers...

lockhart@fourpalms.org

From: Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@fourpalms.org>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Joe Conway <joseph.conway@home.com>
Cc: "Dr. Evil" <drevil@sidereal.kz>, pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Date: 2001-08-07T16:36:23Z
Lists: pgsql-general
> > Looks like plain old C library random numbers. If you want to use
> > /dev/random or /dev/urandom, best bet would be to write your own C function.
> > You should also check through the contrib stuff -- I don't recall seeing RNG
> > functions in there,
> I don't see any in there either, but this seems like a fine candidate for
> a contrib item.  I doubt we'd accept it into the mainstream for lack of
> portability, but as a contrib item, why not?

configure is our friend. A better random number generator is always
welcome imho, and if it can be reliably supported through autoconf then
it would stand a chance to be included in the main tree. Especially
since the usage of random() seems to be very isolated in the code.
contrib/ is always a good first step though...

                    - Thomas