fix: Splat_random Macro not so random

docs/changelog/7.x.x.txt

@@ -35,6 +35,8 @@
    line, which fixed a problem with the WRE monitor, and also enabled us to
    add more complete connectivity testing.
  - fix: Templates XHTML compliance (Wouter van Oijen / ProcoliX)
+ - fix: Splat_random Macro not so random (Wouter van Oijen / ProcoliX) (Thanks
+   to Colin Kuskie for pointing this out and writing some tests)
 
 
 7.0.2

docs/gotcha.txt

@@ -8,6 +8,18 @@ versions. Be sure to heed the warnings contained herein as they will
 save you many hours of grief.
 
 
+7.0.3
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ * Numbers generated by the Splat_random macro were not evenly
+   distributed.  It returned numbers between 0 and 'max' (inclusive)
+   with this two numbers occuring about half as much as other numbers.
+   This is now fixed, so it will return numbers between 0 and 'max-1'
+   (inclusive), with an equal probability of any of these numbers.
+   If you're using this macro, you might need to increment the max
+   parameter.
+
+
 7.0.2
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 

lib/WebGUI/Macro/Splat_random.pm

@@ -21,32 +21,30 @@ Package WebGUI::Macro::Splat_random
 
 Macro for returning a bounded, integer random number.
 
+#-------------------------------------------------------------------
+
 =head2 process ( max )
 
-Random numbers are rounded, not truncated.
+Random numbers are truncated to integer values.
 
 =head3 max
 
-The maximum random number.  If omitted, 1_000_000_000 is
+The upper bound for the random number.  If omitted, 1_000_000_000 is
 used as a default.
 
 =cut
 
-#-------------------------------------------------------------------
 sub process {
 	my $session = shift;
-        my ($temp, @param, $limit);
+	my (@param, $limit);
-        @param = @_;
+	@param = @_;
-        if ($param[0] ne "") {
+	if ($param[0] ne "") {
-        	$limit = $param[0];
+		$limit = $param[0];
-        } else {
+	} else {
-		$limit = 1000000000;
+	$limit = 1000000000;
-        }
+	}
-	$temp = round(rand($limit));
+	return int(rand($limit));
-	return $temp;
 }
 
 
-
-
 1;

t/Macro/Splat_random.t

@@ -71,9 +71,6 @@ WHOLE: for (my $i=0; $i<=999; $i++) {
 	++$bins[$output];
 }
 
-is(scalar(@bins), 5, "All bins have values on a sample size of 1000");
+is(scalar(@bins), 4, "All bins have values on a sample size of 1000");
 
-##Early work in analyzing a frequency distribution showed that the highest
-##and lowest bin have half the frequency of center bins.  Splat_random doesn't
-##seem very random
 #diag Dumper \@bins;