#40114 [Opn->Csd]: mt_srand() generates the same sequences with consecutive seeds

ID: 40114 Updated by: iliaa@php.net Reported By: Pedro Gimeno <phpbugs at personal dot formauri dot -Status: Open +Status: Closed Bug Type: Math related Operating System: any PHP Version: 5.2.0 New Comment: This bug has been fixed in CVS. Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at http://snaps.php.net/. Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better. This issues appears to have already been resolved. With latest CVS each line is different. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2007-01-12 21:29:17] Pedro Gimeno <phpbugs at personal dot formauri dot Description: ------------ When calling mt_srand with seed 0, the resulting sequence is the same as with seed 1; when calling it with seed 2, the sequence is the same as with seed 3, etc., generating the same sequences for even numbers as for these numbers + 1. The problem seems to come from this line: register php_uint32 x = (seed | 1U) & 0xFFFFFFFFU, *s = BG(state); The | 1U is apparently there to force the seed being odd, due to the fact that the initialization uses a pure multiplicative linear-congruential generator. Replacing the line: *s++ = (x *= 69069U) & 0xFFFFFFFFU); with e.g.: *s++ = (x *= 69069U, ++x) & 0xFFFFFFFFU); should eliminate the requirement that the seed be odd. The generator X <- (X*69069+1) mod 2**32 is the 'VAX generator', has decent short-term randomness properties and works fairly well for this purpose (Wikipedia's article about MT uses it). The pure multiplicative X <- (X*69069) mod 2**32 is not so well studied and does not work well with all seeds. The seeding requirements of MT are just that not all elements are zero, which is guaranteed in this case. However, please consider using e.g. the algorithm in init_genrand() in <http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/MT2002/CODES/mt19937ar.c> instead. See justification in <http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/MT2002/emt19937ar.html>. Reproduce code: --------------- <?php for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) { mt_srand($i); echo mt_rand(0, mt_getrandmax()), ", ", mt_rand(0, mt_getrandmax()), "\n"; } ?> Expected result: ---------------- All lines different. Actual result: -------------- Lines are equal by pairs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=40114&edit=1