srand()... possible reasons for failure

**lightatdawn** · 12-18-2001

I have a confusing one here.

My srand function appears to be failing. All my calls to rand() produce the same results as the previous compile. I've made the call to srand and it has worked perfectly... until now... reasons completly unknown.

srand( (unsigned)time( NULL ) );

The thing is, it doesnt matter what i initialize srand with. I could call

srand(10) and the results remain the same as the previous compiles using time() to initialize srand.

The app is DX7 (backwards compatibility is great as i'm using DX8 now). Its using D3D mostly with some old DX7 DDraw surfaces... VC++ 6.0... uhhh, Win98... cant think of anything else that might be relevant.

It has worked just nicely for several months now and then *bang*. today it stopped... Cant remember what i'd been working on...

Anyone ever seen this? What can cause srand() to fail? Are there any other possible reasons for these results? Anything i can try? Anything! Thanks.

**taylorguitarman** · 12-18-2001

I had the same problem with an airport simulation program I made. I never did figure out what I was doing wrong. You could make your own random function though.

**taylorguitarman** · 12-18-2001

Try this-
I know it's basically the same thing but maybe it'll work.

Code:

int main()
{
 time_t CurrentTime;

 time(&CurrentTime);
 srand(CurrentTime);
 
 printf("%d\n", rand());
 return 0;
}

It worked for me, but then again so did the way you already have it. This way you could check for -1 from time() to make sure the time function worked.

**lmov** · 12-18-2001

You can download a random number generator, which runs faster than rand on all machines/compilers/OSes I've tried it on, from here: http://www.math.keio.ac.jp/~matumoto/emt.html

As for the srand problem - it's probably Visual C++'s fault. Have you tried creating a separate small project just to see if it works there? Also try selecting rebuild all from the build menu in VC++ and see if it works then.

Hope this helps

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