Getting Current Date Time for a Random Number Generator's Seed

java time long-integer scalar
bobber205 picture bobber205 · Aug 21, 2010 · Viewed 25.8k times · Source

Preferably as a long.

All the example I can find are getting the date/time as a string and not any scalar value. :)

Answer

Greg Hewgill picture Greg Hewgill · Aug 21, 2010

If you really want the current time as a long, try System.currentTimeMillis(). Alternatively, you can use new Date().getTime().

However, using the current time as a random number generator seed is a very poor choice (at least, if you are using the random numbers for anything important, such as cryptography). You may wish to consider using a random source such as /dev/urandom (if available on your platform).

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