Random number generator only generating one random number

For ease of re-use throughout your application a static class may help.

public static class StaticRandom
{
    private static int seed;

    private static ThreadLocal<Random> threadLocal = new ThreadLocal<Random>
        (() => new Random(Interlocked.Increment(ref seed)));

    static StaticRandom()
    {
        seed = Environment.TickCount;
    }

    public static Random Instance { get { return threadLocal.Value; } }
}

You can use then use static random instance with code such as

StaticRandom.Instance.Next(1, 100);

Every time you do new Random() it is initialized using the clock. This means that in a tight loop you get the same value lots of times. You should keep a single Random instance and keep using Next on the same instance.

//Function to get a random number 
private static readonly Random random = new Random(); 
private static readonly object syncLock = new object(); 
public static int RandomNumber(int min, int max)
{
    lock(syncLock) { // synchronize
        return random.Next(min, max);
    }
}

---

Edit (see comments): why do we need a lock here?

Basically, Next is going to change the internal state of the Random instance. If we do that at the same time from multiple threads, you could argue "we've just made the outcome even more random", but what we are actually doing is potentially breaking the internal implementation, and we could also start getting the same numbers from different threads, which might be a problem - and might not. The guarantee of what happens internally is the bigger issue, though; since Random does not make any guarantees of thread-safety. Thus there are two valid approaches:

• Synchronize so that we don't access it at the same time from different threads
• Use different Random instances per thread

Either can be fine; but mutexing a single instance from multiple callers at the same time is just asking for trouble.

The lock achieves the first (and simpler) of these approaches; however, another approach might be:

private static readonly ThreadLocal<Random> appRandom
     = new ThreadLocal<Random>(() => new Random());

this is then per-thread, so you don't need to synchronize.

Mark's solution can be quite expensive since it needs to synchronize everytime.

We can get around the need for synchronization by using the thread-specific storage pattern:

public class RandomNumber : IRandomNumber
{
    private static readonly Random Global = new Random();
    [ThreadStatic] private static Random _local;

    public int Next(int max)
    {
        var localBuffer = _local;
        if (localBuffer == null) 
        {
            int seed;
            lock(Global) seed = Global.Next();
            localBuffer = new Random(seed);
            _local = localBuffer;
        }
        return localBuffer.Next(max);
    }
}

Measure the two implementations and you should see a significant difference.