Generating random numbers in Objective-C
Use the arc4random_uniform(upper_bound)
function to generate a random number within a range. The following will generate a number between 0 and 73 inclusive.
arc4random_uniform(74)
arc4random_uniform(upper_bound)
avoids modulo bias as described in the man page:
arc4random_uniform() will return a uniformly distributed random number less than upper_bound. arc4random_uniform() is recommended over constructions like ``arc4random() % upper_bound'' as it avoids "modulo bias" when the upper bound is not a power of two.
Same as C, you would do
#include <time.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
...
srand(time(NULL));
int r = rand() % 74;
(assuming you meant including 0 but excluding 74, which is what your Java example does)
Edit: Feel free to substitute random()
or arc4random()
for rand()
(which is, as others have pointed out, quite sucky).
You should use the arc4random_uniform()
function. It uses a superior algorithm to rand
. You don't even need to set a seed.
#include <stdlib.h>
// ...
// ...
int r = arc4random_uniform(74);
The arc4random
man page:
NAME arc4random, arc4random_stir, arc4random_addrandom -- arc4 random number generator LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <stdlib.h> u_int32_t arc4random(void); void arc4random_stir(void); void arc4random_addrandom(unsigned char *dat, int datlen); DESCRIPTION The arc4random() function uses the key stream generator employed by the arc4 cipher, which uses 8*8 8 bit S-Boxes. The S-Boxes can be in about (2**1700) states. The arc4random() function returns pseudo- random numbers in the range of 0 to (2**32)-1, and therefore has twice the range of rand(3) and random(3). The arc4random_stir() function reads data from /dev/urandom and uses it to permute the S-Boxes via arc4random_addrandom(). There is no need to call arc4random_stir() before using arc4random(), since arc4random() automatically initializes itself. EXAMPLES The following produces a drop-in replacement for the traditional rand() and random() functions using arc4random(): #define foo4random() (arc4random() % ((unsigned)RAND_MAX + 1))