I know there are another questions about random in a range but none of their answers accomplishes what I am trying to do. Actually they have the same error I have. I wrote this simple function to generate random with range.
Random m_random = new Random();
...
public int RandomWithRange(int min, int max) {
return m_random.nextInt(max - min + 1) + min;
}
If range is bigger than Integer.MAX_VALUE, it throws an IllegalArgumentException: n must be positive. I know it overflows and turn to a negative number. My question is how to handle that?
Example ranges;
- [0, Integer.MAX_VALUE]
- [Integer.MIN_VALUE, Integer.MAX_VALUE]
- [-100, Integer.MAX_VALUE]
Note: min and max must be inclusive.
The problem you have is that (max - min)
overflows and gives you a negative value.
You can use a long
instead.
public int randomWithRange(int min, int max) {
return (int) ((m_random.nextLong() & Long.MAX_VALUE) % (1L + max - min)) + min;
}
You cannot use int in this case. You need to go with BigInteger. The following constructor does what you want (need some tweaking for your needs of course):
BigInteger(int numBits, Random rnd)
Constructs a randomly generated BigInteger, uniformly distributed over
the range 0 to (2numBits - 1), inclusive.
Have you considered getting a random double and then casting back to int
return (int)(m_random.nextDouble() * ((double)max - (double)min) + min);
The most "dumb but definitely correct" solution I can think of:
if (max - min + 1 > 0) // no overflow
return delta + random.nextInt(max - min + 1);
else {
int result;
do {
result = random.nextInt();
} while (result < min || result > max);
// finishes in <= 2 iterations on average
return result;
}