RE: [F&O] LQ-FO-001 - random numbers

There is a random() function defined in the EXSLT library (www.exslt.org).
That's where it belongs - in a third party library that vendors can choose
to implement if they think there is enough demand. We don't have to put
everything in the core.

Michael Kay

# -----Original Message-----
# From: public-qt-comments-request@w3.org [mailto:public-qt-comments-
# request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Liam Quin
# Sent: 04 March 2004 18:01
# To: public-qt-comments@w3.org
# Subject: [F&O] LQ-FO-001 - random numbers
# 
# 
# Many languages provide a random number generator.  This can
# be useful for testing; in my cases I wanted it as part of
# generating SVG images.
# 
# Although it's possible to write a random number generator in
# XQuery, it's hard to do with any efficiency, because a random()
# function will always return the same random number (e.g. there's
# no assignment to global or hidden variables).
# 
# Two obvious workarounds are (1) an external function, which isn't
# always possible and isn't likely to be interoperable, and (2)
# writing a function random(n) which returns the nth random
# number in a series; this can then moderately easily be written
# as a recursive function, with some care to avoid overflow.
# 
# I'd like to suggest either
# (1) adding a random() function, possibly with an integer argument
#     as outlined above, or,
# 
# (2) defining (in the future) a set of commonly needed external
#     functions, and possibly adding a way to indicate that an
#     external function may return different values on multiple
#     invocations.
# 
# Liam
# 
# --
# Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
# http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/

Received on Thursday, 4 March 2004 18:07:21 UTC