drand48 - Linux

Overview

The drand48 command generates uniformly distributed random numbers. It is useful for various applications, including simulations, statistical analysis, and game development.

Syntax

drand48()

Options/Flags

None

Examples

Generating a single random number

echo $(drand48)

Generating multiple random numbers

for i in {1..10}; do echo $(drand48); done

Seeding the random number generator

To generate a sequence of random numbers that is not predictable, the random number generator can be seeded with a value:

srand48(12345)

Common Issues

Non-uniform distribution

If the random number generator is not seeded, it may generate a non-uniform distribution of numbers.

Predictable sequences

If the same seed value is used multiple times, the drand48 command will generate the same sequence of numbers.

Integration

The drand48 command can be used with other Linux commands and tools to perform advanced tasks. For example:

# Generate a random password
tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_ < /dev/urandom | head -c 16 | drand48

Related Commands

• rand()
• random()
• urandom