PHYLIP Seqboot/random number seed question

[basm101]

Hello,

I am using PHYLIP Seqboot to carry out Bootstrapping. It says in the
docs that the given random
number seed "should be greater than zero and of the form 4n+1"

I have been tending to use 111 which doesn't fit in with this form.

I was wondering if anyone knew:

1) why this 4n+1 form gives the best number to start off the random
number generator
and
2) does it matter if I give the same number every time ? I am running
PHYLIP in batch and
     if I want to give a different seed each time it reads in a new file
I will have to change my
    perl script.

Thanks very much,

Bryony Mackenzie
Bioinformatics
University of York

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