.\" Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
.\"
+.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
+.\" %%%LICENSE_END
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.\" References consulted:
.\" Linux libc source code
.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 18:13:39 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.\" Modified Sun Aug 20 21:47:07 2000, aeb
.\"
-.TH RANDOM 3 2010-09-20 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
+.TH RANDOM 3 2014-03-25 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
random, srandom, initstate, setstate \- random number generator
.SH SYNOPSIS
.BR initstate ()
or be the result of a previous call of
.BR setstate ().
-.SH "RETURN VALUE"
+.SH RETURN VALUE
The
.BR random ()
function returns a value between 0 and
The
.BR srandom ()
function returns no value.
+
The
.BR initstate ()
function returns a pointer to the previous state array.
-The
+On error,
+.I errno
+is set to indicate the cause.
+
+On success,
.BR setstate ()
-function returns a pointer to the previous state array, or NULL on error.
+returns a pointer to the previous state array.
+On error, it returns NULL, with
+.I errno
+set to indicate the cause of the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EINVAL
+The
+.I state
+argument given to
+.BR setstate ()
+was NULL.
+.TP
+.B EINVAL
A state array of less than 8 bytes was specified to
.BR initstate ().
-.SH "CONFORMING TO"
+.SH ATTRIBUTES
+.SS Multithreading (see pthreads(7))
+The
+.BR random (),
+.BR srandom (),
+.BR initstate (),
+and
+.BR setstate ()
+functions are thread-safe.
+.SH CONFORMING TO
4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
.SH NOTES
Current "optimal" values for the size of the state array \fIn\fP are
.IR "The Art of Computer Programming" ,
volume 2 (Seminumerical Algorithms), 2nd ed.; Reading, Massachusetts:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1981.
-.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.SH BUGS
+According to POSIX,
+.BR initstate ()
+should return NULL on error.
+In the glibc implementation,
+.I errno
+is (as specified) set on error, but the function does not return NULL.
+.\" http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=15380
+.SH SEE ALSO
.BR drand48 (3),
.BR rand (3),
.BR random_r (3),
.BR srand (3)
+.SH COLOPHON
+This page is part of release 3.68 of the Linux
+.I man-pages
+project.
+A description of the project,
+information about reporting bugs,
+and the latest version of this page,
+can be found at
+\%http://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.