Seeding $RANDOM in a subshell

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

   On various platforms, with versions of bash from 1.14 to 3.0, I
   get:

$ RANDOM=1234567890; echo $RANDOM
2599
$ RANDOM=1234567890; echo $RANDOM
2599

   That's as it should be. But when I put that in a subshell (2.05b
   and 3.00):

$ ( RANDOM=1234567890; echo $RANDOM )
18681
$ ( RANDOM=1234567890; echo $RANDOM )
20498
$ ( RANDOM=1234567890; echo $RANDOM )
22315

   Bash 1.14 (as well as pdksh and ksh93) produces the same number
   every time.

--
        Chris F.A. Johnson                      http://cfaj.freeshell.org
        =================================================================
                Everything in moderation -- including moderation