[Python-Dev] random.py still broken wrt. urandom (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sat Sep 4 15:12:10 CEST 2004

I consider the random module still broken in its current form (1.66). It tries to invoke random.urandom(1) in order to find out whether urandom works. Instead, it should defer that determination until urandom is actually used; i.e. instead of

         if _urandom is None:
             import time
             a = long(time.time() * 256) # use fractional seconds
         else:
             a = long(_hexlify(_urandom(16)), 16)

it should read

         try:
             a = long(_hexlify(os.urandom(16)), 16)
         except NotImplementedError:
             import time
             a = long(time.time() * 256) # use fractional seconds

IMO the patch to random.py should not have been applied without a review.

Regards, Martin

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