SunOS 4.0 drand48(3) man page bug
David Wiseman
magi%uwocsd.uwo.ca at cornellc.cit.cornell.edu
Fri Feb 3 17:00:20 AEST 1989
Machine Type: All machines, SunOS 4.0
Organization: The University of Western Ontario
Department of Computer Science
London Ontario Canada N6A 5B7
Description:
The drand48(3) man page is badly confused. As witness: read the
following paragraph extracted from the man page.
Functions drand48, seed48, and lcong48() are initialization
entry points, one of which should be invoked before either
drand48, drand48, or drand48() is called. (Although it is
not recommended practice, constant default initializer
values will be supplied automatically if drand48, drand48,
or drand48() is called without a prior call to an initiali-
zation entry point.) Functions drand48, drand48, and
drand48() do not require an initialization entry point to be
called first.
You will note that drand48 appears rather often. In the DESCRIPTION
section of this man page, each reference to one of [delnmjs]rand48()
has been rendered drand48. Since the routines are NOT identical, this
can make it difficult for users to decide what is true about the
routines.
It should also be noted that this bug appears in both the online
documentation and in the hardcopy manuals.
Repeat-By:
man 3 drand48
Fix:
Merge it with the 3.5 man page. A quick scan of the 3.5 man page
doesn't show any glaring changes. The 4.0 man page appears to have been
"fixed" up so that it is more easily read. Unfortunately, they managed
to "fix" it too well.
--
David Wiseman, Network Manager magi at uwocsd.uwo.ca
Department of Computer Science magi at uwovax.BITNET
The University of Western Ontario watmath!julian!uwocsd!magi
London Ontario Canada N6A 5B7
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