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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-06T05:25:30+00:00

From the documentation: Do not combine the call to Randomize in a loop with

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From the documentation:

Do not combine the call to Randomize in a loop with calls to the
Random function. Typically, Randomize is called only once, before all
calls to Random.

(Highlighting of ‘only once’ by me)

Best practices question:

if a Delphi library uses Random, should it only document the requirement of the initializing call of Randomize, and leave the call of Randomize to the user of the library?

Or should the library take care of the initialization, like

if System.RandSeed = 0 then Randomize;
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    In my humble opinion it totally depends on the structure and purpose of your library.

    If the user will never see the Random calls, then I would suggest to make the library initialize it always. Putting it in the docs would not be necessary.

    On the other hand, if the user actually directly calls Random or some wrapper of it by using your library (which I guess is how your library works), then the user will (should) be aware that he is using some sort of random-generating function that will require an initialization, since the Random sequences in most languages are really pseudo-random sequences based on a seed.

    It might be that the user requires the random sequence to be initialized several times, or maybe he/she will be happy with initializing it just once. It totally depends on the user needs.

    I would not force it but rather make the Randomize call available to the user, and maybe give the user the possibility of telling the library to either take care of the initialization or leave it to him/her. And in this case all should be documented.

    HTH

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