random number generators for calc

[Kohei Yoshida]

On 11/28/2012 09:17 AM, tino wrote:
> Hi,
>
> There are currently only uniform random number generators available in
> calc, namely RAND() and RANDBETWEEN(...). I'd be interested in
> generators for other distributions, like normal, exponential etc.
>
> I'd suggest using boost/random.hpp and then implementation will be
> straight forward. We could also replace rand()/(RAND_MAX+1) in RAND()
> with a boost random generator (rand() under windows can be extremely
> poorly implemented and only have 2^16 different values or so). This
> would also solve this windows only bug:
>
>   https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33365
>
> Opinions?

So, Michael Stahl commented in the bug that we do have our own random 
number generator function.  One way is to just replace the direct call 
to rand() to this function instead.  That should be very easy to do and 
I have no objection against it.

Or, is boost's random number generator better than our own?  Does anyone 
know?

Kohei

-- 
Kohei Yoshida, LibreOffice hacker, Calc