// pseudoRandom.C
//
// Written 11 Feb 96 by Max Hailperin <max@gac.edu>
//
// Procedure for uniformly pseudorandomly choosing among options.
//
// Warning: the simple implementation below only works on systems where the
// procedure "random" produces good low-order bits.  On systems derived from earlier
// versions of the Berkeley source code, if you called pseudoRandom(2) repeatedly,
// for example, you would get 0 and 1 in strict alternation.  On such a system,
// a more complex implementation would need to be used here to compensate.

#include "pseudoRandom.h"

extern "C" long random();  // this declares a commonly (though not universally)
                           //  available C library routine I am *assuming*
                           //  in fact is available

unsigned pseudoRandom(unsigned choices)  // returns a result in range from 0
                                         //  up to but not including choices
{
  return random()%choices;
}