Hi,
I think there are two independent problems here.
-------
1.
scm_seed_to_random_state should be able to handle the case that the seed
argument is a non-narrow string.
2.
The *random-state* variable is documented like this:
...
Note that the initial value of *random-state* is the same every time
Guile starts up. Therefore, if you don’t pass a state parameter to the
above procedures, and you don’t set *random-state* to
(seed->random-state your-seed), where your-seed is something that isn’t
the same every time, you’ll get the same sequence of “random” numbers on
every run.
...
However, using scm_from_locale_string to initialize *random-state* makes
it possible that *random-state* differs depending on the locale used
when starting Guile. So, we should use a string that's independent of
the locale settings.
-------
The second problem is fixed by using scm_from_latin1_string instead of
scm_from_locale_string:
...
diff --git a/libguile/random.c b/libguile/random.c
index 4051d1f..6f014e1 100644
--- a/libguile/random.c
+++ b/libguile/random.c
@@ -374,7 +374,7 @@ make_rstate (scm_t_rstate *state)
* Scheme level interface.
*/
-SCM_GLOBAL_VARIABLE_INIT (scm_var_random_state, "*random-state*",
scm_seed_to_random_state (scm_from_locale_string
("URL:http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html";)));
+SCM_GLOBAL_VARIABLE_INIT (scm_var_random_state, "*random-state*",
scm_seed_to_random_state (scm_from_latin1_string
("URL:http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html";)));
SCM_DEFINE (scm_random, "random", 1, 1, 0,
(SCM n, SCM state),
...
Tested on 2.0.14 and 2.2.4 tarballs.
Thanks,
- Tom
