Re: [patch #6797] shred option to use internal RNG

[Pádraig Brady]

Jim Meyering wrote:
> Thanks for doing that.
> At first glance, you got it all.
> Except maybe the texinfo documentation...
> Yep.  There's a mention of shred in the "Random sources" section.
> So now we'd have to say how shred's --random-source works
> and that its default is different from those of shuf and sort...
> 
> Have you considered keeping the semantics of --random-source
> the same for all three programs?

I did, but was conservative and only steered the bulk
random generator (shred) away from /dev/urandom by default.

> Things that ease the documentation burden by keeping inter-tool
> differences to a minimum are usually also good from usability
> and maintainability perspectives.

Also for consistency where /dev/urandom is not available.

OK, I'll change it so they're all the same.
In the future as an implementation detail we can seed the generator
with data from /dev/urandom if available, iff the code/time cost
is deemed worthwhile.

cheers,
Pádraig.

p.s. discussions on random number generation tend to
grow into monster threads containing little info.
Fingers crossed this doesn't happen here :)