On 7 Oct, Nate Lawson wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Julian Elischer wrote:
>> it is just working on the principal that there is not going to be
>> a collision in the 32 bit space. Especially when we create them from
>> "time since the epoch", and when teh various authors can see each
>> other's choices of value.
>
> There are deterministic ways to generate them.
> 1. A counter -- gettag() { return tag++; }
> 2. A LCRG -- gettag() { return (A * tag) % n; }
> 3. A global registry -- "Hey, gimme a major"
>
> There are non-deterministic ways as well, i.e. hash functions and
> PRNGs. And if code can run faster than a given time source, the output of
> that source or permutation thereof can produce collisions.
>
> What leads you towards the time-based option vs. the others, especially
> the deterministic ones?
Why not name them? At boot or module load time stuff the name in a
table and use the table index as the 16 bit ID. Is there any reason the
ID has to be the same each time the system is booted?
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