Generating random integer from a range

Question

I need a function which would generate a random integer in given range (including border values). I don\'t unreasonable quality/randomness requirements, I have four requirem

Answer 1

How about the Mersenne Twister? The boost implementation is rather easy to use and is well tested in many real-world applications. I've used it myself in several academic projects such as artificial intelligence and evolutionary algorithms.

Here's their example where they make a simple function to roll a six-sided die:

#include 
#include 
#include 

boost::mt19937 gen;

int roll_die() {
    boost::uniform_int<> dist(1, 6);
    boost::variate_generator > die(gen, dist);
    return die();
}

Oh, and here's some more pimping of this generator just in case you aren't convinced you should use it over the vastly inferior rand():

The Mersenne Twister is a "random number" generator invented by Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji Nishimura; their website includes numerous implementations of the algorithm.

Essentially, the Mersenne Twister is a very large linear-feedback shift register. The algorithm operates on a 19,937 bit seed, stored in an 624-element array of 32-bit unsigned integers. The value 2^19937-1 is a Mersenne prime; the technique for manipulating the seed is based on an older "twisting" algorithm -- hence the name "Mersenne Twister".

An appealing aspect of the Mersenne Twister is its use of binary operations -- as opposed to time-consuming multiplication -- for generating numbers. The algorithm also has a very long period, and good granularity. It is both fast and effective for non-cryptographic applications.