What's psuedo random number generator?

Question

I'm doing research on rand() function,but not getting how is it working if you know so you can share with me

Answer 1

Hi Ronny,

The function rand() is a PRNG (psuedo random number generator). Psuedo just means that it's not a real/genuine random number, the reason being is that it's between a range 0-RAND_MAX (which is guaranteed to be atleast 32767).

rand() requires a seed, which can be set by the srand() function, if you do not provide a seed it will automatically use 1. Multiple calls to rand() will generate the exact same sequence of numbers.

Changing the seed guarantees a different set of random numbers (between the specified range). It's common to use time() as an arg for srand() so that each time it's called the set is in a different order. However using the same set can be useful for debugging.