C/C++: Get a random number that is in a specific range 1


Assuming you need to generate a random number that is in a specified range, you can do the following:


//int rand(void) creates a pseudo-random number in the range of 0 to RAND_MAX
//RAND_MAX is defined in stdlib.h and is the largest number rand will return (same as INT_MAX).
const int new_number = (rand() % (maximum_number + 1 - minimum_number)) + minimum_number;

The above code first creates a pseudo-random number that is in the range of [0, RAND_MAX].
Then it will divide it with the width (+1) of the range we want to use (maximum_number + 1 - minimum_number) and get the remainder (modulo).
The modulo will be in the range of [0, maximum_number - minimum_number], so we add to it the value of minimum_number to shift the result to the proper range.
This solution, as demonstrated in the example below, works for negative ranges as well.

Full example of generating 100000 random numbers that are all in the range [-31, 32].

const int maximum_number = 31;
const int minimum_number = -32;
unsigned int i;
for (i = 0; i <= 100000; i++) {
	const int new_number = (rand() % (maximum_number + 1 - minimum_number)) + minimum_number;
	printf("%d\n", new_number);
}

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