Generating Random Numbers in Go - random

Question

I am trying to generate random numbers (integers) in Go, to no avail. I found the rand package in crypto/rand, which seems to be what I want, but I can't tell from the documentation how to use it. This is what I'm trying right now:
b := []byte{}
something, err := rand.Read(b)
fmt.Printf("something = %v\n", something)
fmt.Printf("err = %v\n", err)
But unfortunately this always outputs:
something = 0
err = <nil>
Is there a way to fix this so that it actually generates random numbers? Alternatively, is there a way to set the upper bound on the random numbers this generates?

Answer 1

Depending on your use case, another option is the math/rand package. Don't do this if you're generating numbers that need to be completely unpredictable. It can be helpful if you need to get results that are reproducible, though -- just pass in the same seed you passed in the first time.
Here's the classic "seed the generator with the current time and generate a number" program:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"math/rand"
"time"
)
func main() {
rand.Seed(time.Now().Unix())
fmt.Println(rand.Int())
}

Answer 2

crypto/rand provides only binary stream of random data, but you can read integers from it using encoding/binary:
package main
import "encoding/binary"
import "crypto/rand"
func main() {
var n int32
binary.Read(rand.Reader, binary.LittleEndian, &n)
println(n)
}

Answer 3

As of 1 april 2012, after the release of the stable version of the lang, you can do the following:
package main
import "fmt"
import "time"
import "math/rand"
func main() {
rand.Seed(time.Now().UnixNano()) // takes the current time in nanoseconds as the seed
fmt.Println(rand.Intn(100)) // this gives you an int up to but not including 100
}

Answer 4

You can also develop your own random number generator, perhaps based upon a simple "desert island PRNG", a Linear Congruential Generator. Also, look up L'Ecuyer (1999), Mersenne Twister, or Tausworthe generator...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator
(Avoid RANDU, it was popular in the 1960's, but the random numbers generated fall on 15 hyperplanes in 3-space).
package pmPRNG
import "errors"
const (
Mersenne31 = 2147483647 // = 2^31-1
Mersenne31Inv = 1.0 / 2147483647.0 // = 4.656612875e-10
// a = 16807
a = 48271
)
// Each stream gets own seed
type PRNGStream struct {
state int
}
func PRNGStreamNew(seed int) *PRNGStream {
prng := (&PRNGStream{})
prng.SetSeed(seed)
return prng
}
// enforce seed in [1, 2^31-1]
func (r*PRNGStream) SetSeed(seed int) error {
var err error
if seed < 1 || seed > Mersenne31 {
err = errors.New("Seed OOB")
}
if seed > Mersenne31 { seed = seed % Mersenne31 }
if seed < 1 { seed = 1 }
r.state = seed
return err
}
// Dig = Park-Miller DesertIslandGenerator
// integer seed in [1, 2^31-1]
func (r*PRNGStream) Dig(seed int) float32 {
xprev := r.state // x[i-1]
xnext := (a * xprev) % Mersenne31 // x[i] = (a*x[i-1])%m
r.state = xnext // x[i-1] = x[i]
Ri := float32(xnext) * Mersenne31Inv // convert Ui to Ri
return Ri
}
func (r*PRNGStream) Rand() float32 {
r.state = (uint64_t)*r.state * Multby % 0x7fffffff
return float32(r.state) * Mersenne31Inv
}
A few relevant links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehmer_random_number_generator
You might use this function to update your x[i+1], instead of the one above,
val = ((state * 1103515245) + 12345) & 0x7fffffff
(basically, different values of a, c, m)
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/understanding-random-number-generators-and-their-limitations-linux
https://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~lecuyer/myftp/papers/handstat.pdf
https://www.math.utah.edu/~alfeld/Random/Random.html
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2016/august/test-run-lightweight-random-number-generation