this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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It actually doesn't, since rand() is deterministic.
When no seed value is specified, rand() is automatically seeded with 1 at the initial call within any program It then uses the previous output as seed for the next, so it will always have the same output sequence
That is true, but from a human perspective it can still seem non-deterministic! The behaviour of the program as a whole will be deterministic, if all inputs are always the same, in the same order, and without multithreading. On the other hand, a specific function call that is executed multiple times with the same input may occasionally give a different result.
Most programs also have input that changes between executions. Hence you may get the same input record, but at a different place in the execution. Thus you can get a different result for the same record as well.