Standardize on xoroshiro128** as our basic PRNG algorithm, eliminating
a bunch of platform dependencies as well as fundamentally-obsolete PRNG
code. In addition, this API replacement will ease replacing the
algorithm again in future, should that become necessary.
xoroshiro128** is a few percent slower than the drand48 family,
but it can produce full-width 64-bit random values not only 48-bit,
and it should be much more trustworthy. It's likely to be noticeably
faster than the platform's random(), depending on which platform you
are thinking about; and we can have non-global state vectors easily,
unlike with random(). It is not cryptographically strong, but neither
are the functions it replaces.
Fabien Coelho, reviewed by Dean Rasheed, Aleksander Alekseev, and myself
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/alpine.DEB.2.22.394.2105241211230.165418@pseudo
Tom Lane
Bruce Momjian