Inconsistent results with many instances

[ROTGP]

Summary

I have been using faker within Orchestral Testbench. My code generates many instances of faker (one for each of my tests), and each instance is seeded deterministically and generates a large number of variables. My tests started failing, especially when changing between versions of php (7.3, 8.0.1). In summary, I expect faker to behave deterministically - but it doesn't. I've included example code below. On my system, it consistently fails on iteration #5961. I'm not sure if this is a memory issue? I ended up solving it by creating a static instance of faker, and reseeding it. However, I thought I'd create this issue in case anyone else has run into this.

Versions

fakerphp/faker v1.13.0 / php 8.0.1

Self-enclosed code snippet for reproduction

$expected = '234,299,984,500,634,563,254,832,504,421,778,973,198,709,235,740,836,263,88,848,320,319,41,186,3,336,490,891,813,798,384,30,274,118,292,728,918,541,283,872,543,414,856,779,373,422,674,814,442,826,434,105,618,283,513,65,651,941,403,240,806,11,522,384,86,332,319,445,90,670,697,593,890,76,829,853,46,556,626,882,548,272,184,864,799,229,147,165,643,310,248,598,296,132,884,984,679,467,165,876,605,296,93,872,174,161,845,659,384,402,945,436,988,647,540,409,179,149,746,171,597,606,99,366,462,372,412,2,39,449,357,127,79,918,305,761,665,337,774,215,956,803,576,612,680,778,361,114,346,421,43,232,880,441,764,471,878,351,417,706,397,821,492,863,598,392,262,283,702,506,25,967,303,670,242,995,438,331,566,617,475,748,705,865,934,616,15,867,340,957,501,508,18,106,556,663,318,169,483,465,416,92,854,855,68,659,533,397,782,884,719,544,586,721,37,866,351,856,563,894,696,491,491,977,324,402,159,790,50,803,660,844,108,943,826,499,886,248,637,327,218,2,753,708,898,987,250,238,527,734,405,963,857,816,819,309,358,210,48,477,755,52,454,696,227,97,622,648,72,345,72,65,567,220,534,137,990,250,18,650,573,428,792,835,443,966,878,817,584,193,709,808,148,373,575,744,309,186,104,414,440,773,829,351,498,765,819,835,90,785,800,34,431,261,589,139,198,127,567,371,709,322,37,934,974,559,552,673,745,77,438,250,385,355,168,983,839,70,405,794,783,577,154,581,603,234,224,483,616,448,21,131,751,32,827,843,547,980,491,980,484,799,845,96,822,217,14,686,849,676,252,586,457,574,579,0,116,255,339,751,94,612,288,373,77,843,206,238,574,165,710,248,656,596,199,927,351,581,93,96,814,109,213,710,393,574,140,295,384,178,747,74,167,278,737,448,508,385,353,361,782,445,896,960,38,247,317,465,136,883,310,816,973,648,946,690,184,279,69,728,748,652,914,354,458,263,130,543,194,746,403,306,973,906,147,175,274,592,709,409,647,466,210,608,151,434,466,79,559,8,122,366,378,308,576,595,485,966,105,953,697,794,396,267,794,20,590,411,185,541,162,280,434,111,945,155,989,457,229,25';

for ($i = 0; $i < 10000; $i++) {
     $faker = Faker::create();
     $faker->seed(10);
     $result = [];
            
     for ($j = 0; $j < 500; $j++)
          $result[] = $faker->numberBetween(0, 1000);

     $result = implode(',', $result);
     if ($expected != $result) die('FAIL: ' . $i);
}

[pimjansen]

Running this on different versions indeed gives different result. However i see PHP 7.3/7.4/8.0/latest all behave the same way. The way the example is executed though is not really a best practice where we create thousands of Faker instances.

php8.0       | FAIL: 398
phplatest    | FAIL: 398
php8.0 exited with code 0
php7.4       | FAIL: 398
php7.3       | FAIL: 398
phplatest exited with code 0
php7.4 exited with code 0
php7.3 exited with code 0
php7.2       | FAIL: 3597
php7.2 exited with code 0
php7.1       | FAIL: 3197
php7.1 exited with code 0

[pimjansen]

@ROTGP what i can suggest is to create a single Faker instance in these ways and reseed the instance itself.

[ROTGP]

@pimjansen yup, using a static instance and reseeding it is what I ended up doing. I understand that it's somewhat of an extreme edge-case. Feel free to close the issue.