| NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | ATTRIBUTES | CONFORMING TO | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |  | 
RANDOM_R(3)               Linux Programmer's Manual              RANDOM_R(3)
       random_r,  srandom_r, initstate_r, setstate_r - reentrant random num‐
       ber generator
       #include <stdlib.h>
       int random_r(struct random_data *buf, int32_t *result);
       int srandom_r(unsigned int seed, struct random_data *buf);
       int initstate_r(unsigned int seed, char *statebuf,
                       size_t statelen, struct random_data *buf);
       int setstate_r(char *statebuf, struct random_data *buf);
   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
       random_r(), srandom_r(), initstate_r(), setstate_r():
           /* Glibc since 2.19: */ _DEFAULT_SOURCE
               || /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _SVID_SOURCE || _BSD_SOURCE
       These functions are the reentrant equivalents of the functions
       described in random(3).  They are suitable for use in multithreaded
       programs where each thread needs to obtain an independent,
       reproducible sequence of random numbers.
       The random_r() function is like random(3), except that instead of
       using state information maintained in a global variable, it uses the
       state information in the argument pointed to by buf, which must have
       been previously initialized by initstate_r().  The generated random
       number is returned in the argument result.
       The srandom_r() function is like srandom(3), except that it
       initializes the seed for the random number generator whose state is
       maintained in the object pointed to by buf, which must have been
       previously initialized by initstate_r(), instead of the seed
       associated with the global state variable.
       The initstate_r() function is like initstate(3) except that it
       initializes the state in the object pointed to by buf, rather than
       initializing the global state variable.  Before calling this
       function, the buf.state field must be initialized to NULL.  The
       initstate_r() function records a pointer to the statebuf argument
       inside the structure pointed to by buf.  Thus, statebuf should not be
       deallocated so long as buf is still in use.  (So, statebuf should
       typically be allocated as a static variable, or allocated on the heap
       using malloc(3) or similar.)
       The setstate_r() function is like setstate(3) except that it modifies
       the state in the object pointed to by buf, rather than modifying the
       global state variable.  state must first have been initialized using
       initstate_r() or be the result of a previous call of setstate_r().
       All of these functions return 0 on success.  On error, -1 is
       returned, with errno set to indicate the cause of the error.
       EINVAL A state array of less than 8 bytes was specified to
              initstate_r().
       EINVAL The statebuf or buf argument to setstate_r() was NULL.
       EINVAL The buf or result argument to random_r() was NULL.
       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
       attributes(7).
       ┌────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────────────┐
       │Interface                   │ Attribute     │ Value            │
       ├────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼──────────────────┤
       │random_r(), srandom_r(),    │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe race:buf │
       │initstate_r(), setstate_r() │               │                  │
       └────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────┘
       These functions are nonstandard glibc extensions.
       The initstate_r() interface is confusing.  It appears that the
       random_data type is intended to be opaque, but the implementation
       requires the user to either initialize the buf.state field to NULL or
       zero out the entire structure before the call.
       drand48(3), rand(3), random(3)
       This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest version of this page, can be found at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
GNU                              2017-09-15                      RANDOM_R(3)
Pages that refer to this page: random(3)
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