[Ffmpeg-devel] [PATCH] Apple Video Encoder (rpza)

[Dave Dodge]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 11:04:27AM -0600, Mike Melanson wrote:
> Even when using the same random seeds, I am not sure if the ANSI 
> C spec requires the actual random number generator to be implemented the 
> same way on different platforms.

The C standard requires a given implementation to produce the same
sequence of pseudorandom numbers each time it is seeded with the same
value.  The default seed is 1.  There's no guarantee that you'll get
the same sequence on two different implementations, and it could
probably be argued that the standard doesn't guarantee that a given
implementation will produce the same sequence on two separate runs of
the same program.

> 	I looked at the way random() is used in the video encoder:

The random() function isn't part of standard C in any case.  It's a
POSIX/UNIX extension.  All that ANSI gives you is rand() and srand().

If you need consistent pseudorandom values between implementations,
options include:

  - I think the UNIX nrand48 function makes some guarantees about the
    exact algorithm it uses, and it allows you to provide your own
    state data rather than using a global state.

  - You can implement your own.  The C standard provides a very simple
    implementation of rand and srand as an example.

  - There are several strong random number generators available as open
    source, with Mersenne-Twister and ISAAC probably being the most
    well-known.  At least for MT, the example implementation does use
    a global state but can be easily patched to encapsulate all of
    that into a structure and allow you to generate several independent
    streams of data at once.

                                                  -Dave Dodge