How can I generate random alphanumeric strings?

Question

How can I generate a random 8 character alphanumeric string in C#?

Answer 1

The code written by Eric J. is quite sloppy (it is quite clear that it is from 6 years ago... he probably wouldn't write that code today), and there are even some problems.

Unlike some of the alternatives presented, this one is cryptographically sound.

Untrue... There is a bias in the password (as written in a comment), bcdefgh are a little more probable than the others (the a isn't because by the GetNonZeroBytes it isn't generating bytes with a value of zero, so the bias for the a is balanced by it), so it isn't really cryptographically sound.

This should correct all the problems.

public static string GetUniqueKey(int size = 6, string chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890")
{
    using (var crypto = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider())
    {
        var data = new byte[size];

        // If chars.Length isn't a power of 2 then there is a bias if
        // we simply use the modulus operator. The first characters of
        // chars will be more probable than the last ones.

        // buffer used if we encounter an unusable random byte. We will
        // regenerate it in this buffer
        byte[] smallBuffer = null;

        // Maximum random number that can be used without introducing a
        // bias
        int maxRandom = byte.MaxValue - ((byte.MaxValue + 1) % chars.Length);

        crypto.GetBytes(data);

        var result = new char[size];

        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
        {
            byte v = data[i];

            while (v > maxRandom)
            {
                if (smallBuffer == null)
                {
                    smallBuffer = new byte[1];
                }

                crypto.GetBytes(smallBuffer);
                v = smallBuffer[0];
            }

            result[i] = chars[v % chars.Length];
        }

        return new string(result);
    }
}

Answer 2

There is one of the awasome nuget packages that make this so simple.

var myObject = new Faker<MyObject>()
.RuleFor(p => p.MyAlphaNumericProperty, f => f.Random.AlphaNumeric(/*lenght*/ 7))
.Generate();

One of the good example is here.

Answer 3

UPDATED based on comments. The original implementation generated a-h ~1.95% of the time and the remaining characters ~1.56% of the time. The update generates all characters ~1.61% of the time.

FRAMEWORK SUPPORT - .NET Core 3 (and future platforms that support .NET Standard 2.1 or above) provides a cryptographically sound method RandomNumberGenerator.GetInt32() to generate a random integer within a desired range.

Unlike some of the alternatives presented, this one is cryptographically sound.

using System;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

namespace UniqueKey
{
    public class KeyGenerator
    {
        internal static readonly char[] chars =
            "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890".ToCharArray(); 

        public static string GetUniqueKey(int size)
        {            
            byte[] data = new byte[4*size];
            using (RNGCryptoServiceProvider crypto = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider())
            {
                crypto.GetBytes(data);
            }
            StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder(size);
            for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                var rnd = BitConverter.ToUInt32(data, i * 4);
                var idx = rnd % chars.Length;

                result.Append(chars[idx]);
            }

            return result.ToString();
        }

        public static string GetUniqueKeyOriginal_BIASED(int size)
        {
            char[] chars =
                "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890".ToCharArray();
            byte[] data = new byte[size];
            using (RNGCryptoServiceProvider crypto = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider())
            {
                crypto.GetBytes(data);
            }
            StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder(size);
            foreach (byte b in data)
            {
                result.Append(chars[b % (chars.Length)]);
            }
            return result.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Based on a discussion of alternatives here and updated/modified based on the comments below.

Here's a small test harness that demonstrates the distribution of characters in the old and updated output. For a deep discussion of the analysis of randomness, check out random.org.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using UniqueKey;

namespace CryptoRNGDemo
{
    class Program
    {

        const int REPETITIONS = 1000000;
        const int KEY_SIZE = 32;

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Original BIASED implementation");
            PerformTest(REPETITIONS, KEY_SIZE, KeyGenerator.GetUniqueKeyOriginal_BIASED);

            Console.WriteLine("Updated implementation");
            PerformTest(REPETITIONS, KEY_SIZE, KeyGenerator.GetUniqueKey);
            Console.ReadKey();
        }

        static void PerformTest(int repetitions, int keySize, Func<int, string> generator)
        {
            Dictionary<char, int> counts = new Dictionary<char, int>();
            foreach (var ch in UniqueKey.KeyGenerator.chars) counts.Add(ch, 0);

            for (int i = 0; i < REPETITIONS; i++)
            {
                var key = generator(KEY_SIZE); 
                foreach (var ch in key) counts[ch]++;
            }

            int totalChars = counts.Values.Sum();
            foreach (var ch in UniqueKey.KeyGenerator.chars)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"{ch}: {(100.0 * counts[ch] / totalChars).ToString("#.000")}%");
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

 public static string RandomString(int length)
    {
        const string chars = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789";
        var random = new Random();
        return new string(Enumerable.Repeat(chars, length).Select(s => s[random.Next(s.Length)]).ToArray());
    }

Answer 5

Horrible, I know, but I just couldn't help myself:

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    using System;
    using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Random adomRng = new Random();
            string rndString = string.Empty;
            char c;

            for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++)
            {
                while (!Regex.IsMatch((c=Convert.ToChar(adomRng.Next(48,128))).ToString(), "[A-Za-z0-9]"));
                rndString += c;
            }

            Console.WriteLine(rndString + Environment.NewLine);
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

I know this one is not the best way. But you can try this.

string str = Path.GetRandomFileName(); //This method returns a random file name of 11 characters
str = str.Replace(".","");
Console.WriteLine("Random string: " + str);