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From: Mart van de Wege <mvdwege@mail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Random number generation
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:16:08 +0100
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Date: 2010-12-30T13:16:08+01:00
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Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com> writes:

> On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:43:40 +0100, Mart van de Wege <mvdwege@mail.com> wrote:
>
<snip>

> Check the documentation for  Ada.Numerics.Discrete_Random or at least its
> specification ( .ads file) but I think you'll find you need to reset the Die
> exactly once, rather than every call of the Roll function.
>
> As I understand, you are resetting the seed each time, so you get the same
> results!
>
> The shortest way to resolve this is to make Die a global variable and reset it
> at the start of the main program - in the context of a one-page beginner's
> program it's a reasonable thing to do.
>
> We're all taught "Global Variables are BAD" with good reason, so - once you have
> resolved the immediate problem - it might be a good time to learn a bit about
> packages, to hide the Die and expose only what you need to operate on it.
>
Heh.

This function *was* living in a package. I abstracted it out into a
test program to isolate it and make it short enough to copy/paste here.

But thanks. The problem is with my re-initialising the generator every time,
and like others pointed out, the code is running fast enough that the
generator gets the same seed every time; that is, if I understand
everything correctly now.

Mart
-- 
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
    --- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.