From: Andy Moreton <andrewjmoreton@gmail.com>
To: 32605@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#32605: [w64] (random) never returns negative
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 12:06:00 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <86sfzcjnfr.fsf@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <855zzpf86u.fsf@gmail.com>
On Sat 14 Aug 2021, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Andy Moreton <andrewjmoreton@gmail.com>
>> Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 09:31:06 +0100
>>
>> I'm not an expert on random numbers either, and your efforts are not an
>> annoyance, but I am puzzled why you so strongly prize performance over
>> correctness in this instance.
>
> Because I have no idea how important the "correctness" part is, or
> why. OTOH, this stuff, when used, tends to be in the inner loops, so
> performance matters.
I doubt anyone expects cryptographic quality randomness or any given
statistical distribution from such a general purpose routine, but they
have a reasonable expectation that the results from 'get_random' do not
have stuck bits that are always non-random.
In which case perhaps the solution is to change the RAND_BITS logic
in sysdep.c on Windows to override the RAND_BITS definition:
+ #ifdef WINDOWSNT
+ /* Use w32.c replacement for random(). */
+ # define RAND_BITS 15
+ #endif
#ifndef RAND_BITS
# ifdef HAVE_RANDOM
# define RAND_BITS 31
# else /* !HAVE_RANDOM */
...
#endif
..and then in w32.c make 'random' return the 15bit value from
'rand_as183':
int
random (void)
{
/* rand_as183 () gives us 15 random bits. */
return rand_as183 ();
}
That should result in 'get_random' receiving 15 bits of randomness in
each loop iteration and thus computing a valid result.
[This could obviously be optimised to open code 'rand_as183' in 'random',
or allow the compiler to inline it by moving the w32.c implementations
of 'random' and 'srandom' into sysdep.c]
As 'get_random_bignum' (in fns.c) calls 'get_random' in a loop, that
should also remove bugs from that function on this platform.
Perhaps this would be helped by having a test for 'get_random', to check
that every bit of a fixnum is toggled after a reasonable number of
calls. While that does not test the statistical distribution of the
random number sequence, it would ensure that the values returned by
'get_random' are not always positive, or always even, etc.
AndyM
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-08-14 11:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-09-01 17:18 bug#32605: 26.1; (random) never returns negative Francis Wright
2018-09-01 17:34 ` Stephen Berman
2018-09-04 22:27 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-09-05 13:20 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-12 13:17 ` bug#32605: [w64] " Lars Ingebrigtsen
2021-08-12 13:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-12 20:34 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-13 6:29 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-13 21:12 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-14 5:54 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-14 8:31 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-14 8:57 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-14 11:06 ` Andy Moreton [this message]
2021-08-14 11:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-14 12:10 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-14 12:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-14 13:40 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-14 14:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2021-08-14 18:47 ` Andy Moreton
2021-08-15 6:07 ` Eli Zaretskii
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