OpenEuphoria

?rand(2)=1 twice oddity

• Posted by Pete Lomax <petelomax at bluey?n?er.co.uk> Dec 13, 2007
• 469 views

I was using

if rand(2)=1 then
     ..
  else
     ..
  end if
  if rand(2)=1 then
     ..
  else
     ..
  end if

and noticed the second instance did not behave as expected, so I wrote the
following two-line test program:

?rand(2)=1
?rand(2)=1

While the first seemed reasonably random, about 35 to 50 successive runs display
a 1 on the second line then the next 35 to 50 or so runs show 0's.
Seems OK in a loop, appears to be just the second call to rand(2) after the
application has started. Same on 2.4 and 3.0.1, exw and exwc.

Can anyone confirm this, offer an explanation, and/or suggest an alternative way
to generate a 50:50 probability quickly, preferrably not using one of the
convoluted libs in the archives? Does not have to be owt fancy just not
*regularly* delivering a 1 in 1,125,899,906,842,624 improbability!!

Thanks,
Pete