SYNOPSIS

ns_rand ?max?

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DESCRIPTION

ns_rand generates a cryptographically-secure random number. If max is not specified, the random number is a floating-point value n such that 0.0 <= n < 1.0.

If max is specified, it must be a positive integer between 0 and 2147483647. The return value is an integer value such that 0 <= n <= (max - 1).

Internally ns_rand is implemented with the drand48(3) and lrand48(3) standard library functions. An internal random seed is generated the first time ns_rand is called after the server starts.

EXAMPLES

 nscp> ns_rand
 0.39938485692
 nscp> ns_rand 10
 7

KEYWORDS