generating random numbers in c++ - c++

Question

I need to generate a random number between 1 and n where n is unsigned int.
If n were int I would simply write 1 + rand()% n. But unfortunately n is unsigned int. What do you suggest?

Answer 1

rand() should be avoided whenever possible*.
Use http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/numeric/random
#include <random>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::random_device rd;
std::mt19937 engine(rd());
std::uniform_int_distribution<unsigned> dist(1, 77);
for (int i = 0; i != 5; ++i)
std::cout << dist(engine) << '\n';
}
* Because it shares a global state, gets often implemented as a linear congruential engine which has a few drawbacks and it's range is often only 0-2^16. Also, % n where n is not an exact multiple of the range does not produce an uniform distribution.
Edit: This might seem like overkill, but technically one would want something like this, since mt19937 needs a bit of "warm up":
std::mt19937 create_seeded_rng()
{
std::random_device rd;
std::array<std::mt19937::result_type, std::mt19937::state_size> seed_data;
std::generate(seed_data.begin(), seed_data.end(), std::ref(rd));
std::seed_seq seq(seed_data.begin(), seed_data.end());
return std::mt19937(seq);
}
int main()
{
std::mt19937 rng = create_seeded_rng();
std::uniform_int_distribution<int> dist(0, 100);
for (unsigned i = 0; i != 100; ++i)
std::cout << dist(rng) << '\n';
}