Xref: news2.mv.net comp.lang.c:66946 comp.os.msdos.djgpp:3595
From: piet AT cs DOT ruu DOT nl (Piet van Oostrum)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Use of random
Date: 08 May 1996 16:50:43 +0200
Organization: Universiteit Utrecht, Dept. of Computer Science
Lines: 25
Sender: piet AT stego DOT cs DOT ruu DOT nl
Message-ID: <wzrasvkym5.fsf@stego.cs.ruu.nl>
References: <4mikhp$pa5 AT frodo DOT smartlink DOT net>
	<4mpqdn$9li AT moody DOT mchh DOT siemens DOT de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: stego.cs.ruu.nl
In-reply-to: Ronald Fischer's message of 8 May 1996 09:44:23 GMT
To: Ronald Fischer <ronald DOT fischer AT uebemc DOT siemens DOT de>
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

>>>>> Ronald Fischer <ronald DOT fischer AT uebemc DOT siemens DOT de> (RF) writes:

RF> The only problem I see with your program is in the malloc:

RF> onesp = (int *)malloc(NUM * 2)

RF> Unless it happens that sizeof(int)==2, this won't allocate enough memory and
RF> strange results will occur. 

>> but it gives me #s far larger than integers 

RF> This is not possible with your program. Even if rand would return a
RF> long instead of an int (which it is not allowed to), you are storing it
RF> into an int, and an int can't hold numbers larger than an int (did you
RF> invent a bit-squeeze algorithm which stores two bits into one?). Also,
RF> your printf statement prints the ints correctly as int, so I wonder how
RF> you came to your strange conclusion.

Apparently this person thought that integers are 16-bit  things, so I guess
he did mean that some numbers (or most) were bigger than 32767. If he wants
to work with 16bits then he should use short rather than int, and even then
he should say (short *)malloc(NUM * sizeof(short)) rather than the supposed 2.
-- 
Piet van Oostrum <piet AT cs DOT ruu DOT nl>
URL: http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet