Technical data

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Chapter 4: System Functions and Subroutines
SECNDS
SECNDS is an intrinsic routine that returns the number of seconds since
midnight, minus the value of the passed arguments; the format is as follows:
s = SECNDS(n)
After execution, s contains the number of seconds past midnight less the
value specified by n. Both s and n are single-precision, floating point values.
RAN
The RAN routine generates a random number; the format is as follows:
v = RAN(s)
The argument s is an INTEGER*4 variable or array element; s serves as a
seed in determining the next random number and should initially be set to
a large, odd integer value. This permits the computation of multiple random
number series by supplying different variable names as the seed argument
to RAN.
Note: Because RAN modifies the argument s, calling the function with a
constant can cause a core dump.