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Bug #50825 rand () and mt_rand () do not properly calculate when min=0
Submitted: 2010-01-22 16:42 UTC Modified: 2010-01-22 17:59 UTC
From: xeriar at gmail dot com Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: Math related
PHP Version: 5.2.12 OS: Debian Squeeze
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2010-01-22 16:42 UTC] xeriar at gmail dot com
Description:
------------
Whenever rand () or mt_rand () are passed with a min=0, 0 gets reported less often than it should be. mt_rand (0,1) returns 1 75% of the time, for example, while mt_rand (1,2) works as expected.

Reproduce code:
---------------
<?php
  $arr = array ();
  for ($i = 0; $i < 100000; $i++)
    {
      $c = mt_rand (0,1);
      if (!isset ($arr[$c])) $arr[$c] = 1;
      else $arr[$c]++;
    }
  ksort ($arr);
  foreach ($arr as $key => $value)
      echo '<b>'.$key.':</b> '.$value.'<br />';

Expected result:
----------------
0 and 1 should each get ~50,000 results

Actual result:
--------------
0 gets ~25k results and 1 gets ~75k

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 [2010-01-22 16:47 UTC] pajoye@php.net
As both implemenations are not ideal, this specific is not fixable and won't be.

Btw, if you use better random sources, getting a 50/50 as you expect is very unlikely .)
 [2010-01-22 17:23 UTC] xeriar at gmail dot com
As I mentioned, simply passing mt_rand (1,2) nets the 50/50 results desired. Which you would have noted if you had bothered reading the description.

It is in fact fixable, and I've created my own implementation piping from /dev/urandom to cope with this since I obviously can't trust the php code to.
 [2010-01-22 17:59 UTC] pajoye@php.net
/dev/urandom is indeed better that MT or the rather basic rand.
 
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