DESCRIPTION

These functions are the reentrant equivalents of the functions described in random(3). They are suitable for use in multithreaded programs where each thread needs to obtain an independent, reproducible sequence of random numbers.

The random_r() function is like random(3), except that instead of using state information maintained in a global variable, it uses the state information in the argument pointed to by buf, which must have been previously initialized by initstate_r(). The generated random number is returned in the argument result.

The srandom_r() function is like srandom(3), except that it initializes the seed for the random number generator whose state is maintained in the object pointed to by buf, which must have been previously initialized by initstate_r(), instead of the seed associated with the global state variable.

The initstate_r() function is like initstate(3) except that it initializes the state in the object pointed to by buf, rather than initializing the global state variable.

The setstate_r() function is like setstate(3) except that it modifies the state in the object pointer to by buf, rather than modifying the global state variable.

RETURN VALUE

All of these functions return 0 on success. On error, −1 is returned, with errno set to indicate the cause of the error.

ERRORS

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

CONFORMING TO

These functions are nonstandard glibc extensions.

SEE ALSO

drand48(3), rand(3), random(3)