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Can we please change the signature of fn:random-number-generator($seed as xs:anyAtomicType) as map(xs:string, item()) to fn:random-number-generator($seed as xs:anyAtomicType?) as map(xs:string, item()) such that a call of fn:random-number-generate( () ) is equivalent to calling fn:random-number-generator(). in keeping the convention often used in F&O?
On closer inspection, this isn't the convention at all. Please ignore.
Actually, this does make sense, since it provides a way to use the unary function to "choose a seed that is likely to be different from one execution scope" as per the zero-arity version.
At the meeting on 2016-06-07, the WG agreed to resolve this as follows: RESOLVED: to adopt the proposal in bug 29671 to make random-number-generator#1 accept an empty sequence as argument, with the behavior being the same as for random-number-generator#0. Actions A-645-01 and A-645-02 were raised to track this.
Tests have been added. I've presumed that the text will make it clear that a call fn:generate() is exactly equivalent to a call to fn:generate( () ) in the sense that they will generate exactly the same random sequence, e.g. such that fn:generate()?number eq fn:generate( () )?number