Random Generators for .NET

Jonathan de Halleux

4.33/5 (9 votes)

Oct 3, 2003

2 min read

79806

252

A thin wrapper around the Boost.Random library

Download demo project - 10.1 KB

Why?

There are a large number of random generators available in C++, through the Boost.Random library.

Each generator has different properties, speed and domain, that makes it more suitable in specific applications.

Unfortunately, the .NET Framework provides the System.Random class only. So here goes this article.

Quick Example

The generators are used in a similar way to the System.Random object:

Create a new generator, you must provide the seed:

using Boost.Random;
uint seed; // you must generate that

// Mt11213b is the famous mersenne twister
Mt11213b gen = new Mt11213b( seed );

Call Next or NextDouble:

rnd.Next(); // returns int
rnd.NextDouble(); // returns double

Generators

All the generators have kept their Boost name, but in camel notation. If you want more details about their properties, take a look at the Boost.Random page.

Boost class	.NET wrapper class
`minstd_rand`	`MinStdRand`
`minstd0_rand`	`MinStd0Rand`
`ecuyer1988`	`Ecuyer1988`
`kreutzer1986`	`Kreutzer`
`HELLEKALEK1995`	`Helleklek1995`
`mt11213b`	`Mt11213b`
`mt19937`	`Mt19937`
`lagged_fibonacci607`	`LaggedFibonacci607`
`lagged_fibonacci1279`	`LaggedFibonacci1279`
`lagged_fibonacci2281`	`LaggedFibonacci2281`
`lagged_fibonacci3217`	`LaggedFibonacci3217`
`lagged_fibonacci4423`	`LaggedFibonacci4423`
`lagged_fibonacci9689`	`LaggedFibonacci9689`
`lagged_fibonacci19937`	`LaggedFibonacci19937`
`lagged_fibonacci23209`	`LaggedFibonacci23209`
`lagged_fibonacci44497`	`LaggedFibonacci44497`

Tests

Here are the result tests on 1000000 random generation. (you can do that test using the demo program).

Generator	Timing in seconds
`Random.Next`	0,0857201124723952
`Ecuyer1988.Next`	0,574264885620938
`Hellekalek1995.Next`	0,958088807376356
`MinStd0Rand.Next`	0,15938422341387
`MinStdRand.Next`	0,152292260608541
`Mt11213b.Next`	0,0389937827293692
`Mt19937.Next`	0,0402464559043119
`Random.NextDouble`	0,0438223293742641
`Ecuyer1988.NextDouble`	0,618387532493655
`Jellekalek1995.NextDouble`	1,00235448918787
`MinStd0Rand.NextDouble`	0,214150401796876
`MinStdRand.NextDouble`	0,2078839629059
`Mt11213b.NextDouble`	0,10741672475133
`Mt19937.NextDouble`	0,108539772512987
`LaggedFibonacci607.NextDouble`	0,0276551908133576
`LaggedFibonacci1279.NextDouble`	0,0272001050412832
`LaggedFibonacci3217.NextDouble`	0,0283938321769946
`LaggedFibonacci4423.NextDouble`	0,0293869751602508
`LaggedFibonacci44297.NextDouble`	0,0299146958621836

References

History

3^rd October, 2003: Initial version

License

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