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From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-lists@be-well.ilk.org>
To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: On changing rand(3) to random(3) in awk(1)
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Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:05:10 -0400
In-Reply-To: <34BC8621-2628-4FD1-9F58-A282B3A96C50@gmail.com> (Chenguang Li's
 message of "Thu, 28 Aug 2014 22:33:43 +0800")
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Chenguang Li <horus.li@gmail.com> writes:

> Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net> wrote:

>> Of course you're right, it's documented as 2^32-1.  Though now I wonder
>> whether stdlib.h shouldn't provide some kind of RANDOM_MAX constant for
>> this purpose, instead of programs having to do their own hardcoding.
>
> It would be nice to have it as a constant, as RAND_MAX for rand(3).

This comes from the POSIX specification, which specifically calls out
that value even though it specifies the type as a long int. There's no
reason we can't add it to our headers, but it won't be portable.