Generating a random double between a range of values

Question

Im currently having trouble generating random numbers between -32.768 and 32.768. It keeps giving me the same values but with a small change in the decimal field. ex : 27.xxx.

Heres my code, any help would be appreciated.

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
#include <cstdlib>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    srand( time(NULL) );
    double r = (68.556*rand()/RAND_MAX - 32.768);
    cout << r << endl;
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

I should mention if you're using a C++11 compiler, you can use something like this, which is actually easier to read and harder to mess up:

#include <random>
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>


int main()
{
    //Type of random number distribution
    std::uniform_real_distribution<double> dist(-32.768, 32.768);  //(min, max)

    //Mersenne Twister: Good quality random number generator
    std::mt19937 rng; 
    //Initialize with non-deterministic seeds
    rng.seed(std::random_device{}()); 

    // generate 10 random numbers.
    for (int i=0; i<10; i++)
    {
      std::cout << dist(rng) << std::endl;
    }
    return 0;
}

As bames53 pointed out, the above code can be made even shorter if you make full use of c++11:

#include <random>
#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
#include <algorithm>
#include <iterator>

int main()
{
    std::mt19937 rng; 
    std::uniform_real_distribution<double> dist(-32.768, 32.768);  //(min, max)
    rng.seed(std::random_device{}()); //non-deterministic seed
    std::generate_n( 
         std::ostream_iterator<double>(std::cout, "\n"),
         10, 
         [&]{ return dist(rng);} ); 
    return 0;
}

Answer 2

Also, If you are not using c++ 11 you can use the following function instead:

double randDouble(double precision, double lowerBound, double upperBound) {
 double random;
 random = static_cast<double>(((rand()%(static_cast<int>(std::pow(10,precision)*(upperBound - lowerBound) + 1))) + lowerBound*std::pow(10,precision)))/std::pow(10,precision);
 return random;
}

Answer 3

So, I think this is a typical case of "using time(NULL) isn't a great way of seeding random numbers for runs that start close together". There isn't that many bits that change in time(NULL) from one call to the next, so random numbers are fairly similar. This is not a new phenomena - if you google "my random numbers aren't very random", you'll find LOTS of this.

There are a few different solutions - getting a microsecond or nanosecond time would be the simplest choice - in Linux gettimeofday will give you a microsecond time as part of the struct.

Answer 4

It seams to be plainly obvious but some of the examples say otherwise... but i thought when you divide 1 int with another you always get an int? and you need to type cast each int to double/float before you divide them.

ie: double r = (68.556* (double)rand()/(double)RAND_MAX - 32.768);

also if you call srand() every time you call rand() you reset the seed which results in similar values returned every time instead of ''random'' ones.

Answer 5

I've added a for loop to your program:

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>
#include <cstdlib>

using namespace std;

int main () {
    srand(time (NULL));

    for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
        double r = ((68.556 * rand () / RAND_MAX) - 32.768);

        cout << r << endl;
    }

    return 0;
}

Example output:

 31.6779 
-28.2096
 31.5672
 18.9916 
-1.57149 
-0.993889
-32.4737
 24.6982
 25.936 
 26.4152

It seems Okay to me. I've added the code on Ideone for you.

Here are four runs:

 Run 1:
    -29.0863
    -22.3973
     34.1034
    -1.41155
    -2.60232
    -30.5257
     31.9254
    -17.0673
     31.7522
     28.227

Run 2:
    -14.2872
    -0.185124
    -27.3674
     8.12921
     22.4611
    -0.414546
    -21.4944
    -11.0871
     4.87673
     5.4545

Run 3:
    -23.9083
    -6.04738
    -6.54314
     30.1767
    -16.2224
    -19.4619
     3.37444
     9.28014
     25.9318
    -22.8807

Run 4:
     25.1364
     16.3011
     0.596151
     5.3953
    -25.2851
     10.7301
     18.4541
    -18.8511
    -0.828694
     22.8335

Perhaps you're not waiting at least a second between runs?