Ed.: Most standardization papers are about technical changes. It's not often you get a tutorial written by a world-class expert submitted as a WG21 paper. Thanks, Walter!

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3551

Date: 2013-03-12

Random Number Generation in C++11

by Walter Brown

Excerpt:

For programmers seeking to familiarize themselves with the <random> component of the
C++11 standard library, we provide background information and tutorial guidance with numerous
usage examples.

1 Introduction 1
2 Getting started 2
3 An anti-pattern 3
4 Initializing an engine 3
5 What else can an engine do? 4
6 Engines in the standard library 5
7 Sharing an engine 5
8 Distributions in the standard library 6
9 What else can a distribution do? 8
10 A simple toolkit 9
11 A final example 9
12 Caveat lector! 10
13 What’s next? 11
14 Acknowledgments 11
15 Bibliography 11
16 Revision history 12