takes two parameters, an OID x and an integer y, and returns "true" with
probability 1/y (the OID argument is ignored). This can be useful -- for
example, it can be used to select a random sampling of the rows in a
table (which is what the "random" regression test uses it for).
This patch removes that function, because it was old and messy. The old
function had the following problems:
- it was undocumented
- it was poorly named
- it was designed to workaround an optimizer bug that no longer exists
(the OID argument is to ensure that the optimizer won't optimize away
calls to the function; AFAIK marking the function as 'volatile' suffices
nowadays)
- it used a different random-number generation technique than the other
PSRNG-related functions in the backend do (it called random() like they
do, but it had its own logic for setting a set and deciding when to
reseed the RNG).
Ok, this patch removes oidrand(), oidsrand(), and userfntest(), and
improves the SGML docs a little bit (un-commenting the setseed()
documentation).
Neil Conway
Peter Eisentraut
Bruce Momjian
Thomas G. Lockhart
Marc G. Fournier