Random Numbers in Perl

On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 08:39:34AM -0700, Kevin Buettner wrote:
> On Oct 22, 11:53pm, Nathan Saper wrote:
>
> > Here's one for you Perl gurus out there:
> >
> > In a Perl app I'm trying to write, I want to be able to create random
> > hex integers $bits bits long, where $bits is a user-defined variable.
> > The randomness of the numbers needs to be as good as possible, because
> > it would be used in a crypto app.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> If you're on linux, query /dev/random and use however many bits you need.
>
> This isn't exactly portable, but I doubt that you'll find a portable
> way to obtain cryptographically strong random numbers.
>

I'm trying to implement something that is as OS-unspecific as
possible.

> Kevin

- --
Nathan Saper (natedog@well.com) | http://www.well.com/user/natedog/
GnuPG (ElGamal/DSA): 0x9AD0F382 | PGP 2.x (RSA): 0x386C4B91
Standard PGP & PGP/MIME OK      | AOL Instant Messenger: linuxfu