random: Remove internal aliases for the global Mt19937 functionality #14314
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This effectively is just a slim wrapper around `(zend_long)php_mt_rand()`. It is not compatible between 32-bit and 64-bit builds of PHP, due to the use of `zend_long`, which may result in negative integersbeing returned on 32-bit platforms, whereas 64-bit platforms will be compatible with `php_mt_rand()`. An example would be the `0` seed, which emits 2357136044 on 64-bit platforms and -1937831252 on 32-bit platforms. Users of `php_rand()` should ideally migrate to one of the more modern engines, with extension-specific state. If drop-in compatibility is desired, they can just cast the result of `php_mt_rand()`. But providing it out of the box does not provide a value-add and is potentially dangerous.
With `php_rand()` gone, preserving its companion `php_srand()` is just confusing. The same recommendations apply: Migrate to a modern engine if possible and just call `php_mt_srand()` with an appropriately casted input.
These are the companions to `php_rand()`, which was removed in a previous commit. Generally speaking the maximum returnable value is not particularly useful anyways. Attempting it to create a random float by dividing the returned integer by the maximum value would result in a bias if the maximum value would be larger than 2**53 and even for that case, the various `range()` helpers allow to easily retrieve a uniformly distributed integer from a suitable range.
zeriyoshi
approved these changes
May 24, 2024
Girgias
approved these changes
May 26, 2024
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With the removal of the backwards compatibility headers in #13108, breaking compatibility for extensions designed for PHP versions before 8.2, I'm using the opportunity to remove some more legacy warts of the internal API.
See the commit messages of the individual commits for more details regarding the reasoning for the removal of each piece of the API.