How to get current seed from C++ rand()?

Question

I generate a few thousand object in my program based on the C++ rand() function. Keeping them in the memory would be exhaustive. Is there a way to copy the CURRENT

Answer 1

Is there a way to copy the CURRENT seed of rand() at any given time?

What follows is an implementation-specific way to save and restore the pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) state that works with the C library on Ubuntu Linux (tested on 14.04 and 16.04).

#include 
#include 
#include 

using namespace std;

constexpr size_t StateSize = 128;
using RandState = array;

void save(RandState& state) {
    RandState tmpState;
    char* oldState = initstate(1, tmpState.data(), StateSize);
    copy(oldState, oldState + StateSize, state.data());
    setstate(oldState);
}

void restore(RandState& state) {
    setstate(state.data());
}

int main() {
    cout << "srand(1)\n";

    srand(1);

    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';

    cout << "srand(1)\n";

    srand(1);

    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';

    cout << "save()\n";

    RandState state;
    save(state);

    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';

    cout << "restore()\n";

    restore(state);

    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
    cout << "  rand(): " << rand() << '\n';
}

This relies on:

1. the same PRNG being used by the C library to expose both rand() and random() interfaces, and
2. some knowledge about the default initialization of this PRNG in the C library (128 bytes state).

If run, this should output:

srand(1)
  rand(): 1804289383
  rand(): 846930886
  rand(): 1681692777
  rand(): 1714636915
  rand(): 1957747793
  rand(): 424238335
  rand(): 719885386
  rand(): 1649760492
srand(1)
  rand(): 1804289383
  rand(): 846930886
  rand(): 1681692777
  rand(): 1714636915
save()
  rand(): 1957747793
  rand(): 424238335
  rand(): 719885386
  rand(): 1649760492
restore()
  rand(): 1957747793
  rand(): 424238335
  rand(): 719885386
  rand(): 1649760492

This solution can help in some cases (code that can't be changed, reproducing execution for debugging purpose, etc...), but it is obviously not recommended as a general one (e.g. use C++11 PRNG which properly support this).