How bad is Math.random()?
Generating random whole numbers in JavaScript in a specific range - Stack Overflow
How does Math.random() work in javascript? - Stack Overflow
Basic JavaScript - Generate Random Whole Numbers with JavaScript
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I was reading a thread on a post in one of the JS subs that was saying Math.random() isn't particularly good when it comes to making random numbers. Is it particularly bad? Are some use cases worse than others for using Math.random()? What are some ways to do it better?
There are some examples on the Mozilla Developer Network page:
/**
* Returns a random number between min (inclusive) and max (exclusive)
*/
function getRandomArbitrary(min, max) {
return Math.random() * (max - min) + min;
}
/**
* Returns a random integer between min (inclusive) and max (inclusive).
* The value is no lower than min (or the next integer greater than min
* if min isn't an integer) and no greater than max (or the next integer
* lower than max if max isn't an integer).
* Using Math.round() will give you a non-uniform distribution!
*/
function getRandomInt(min, max) {
min = Math.ceil(min);
max = Math.floor(max);
return Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min;
}
Here's the logic behind it. It's a simple rule of three:
Math.random() returns a Number between 0 (inclusive) and 1 (exclusive). So we have an interval like this:
[0 .................................... 1)
Now, we'd like a number between min (inclusive) and max (exclusive):
[0 .................................... 1)
[min .................................. max)
We can use the Math.random to get the correspondent in the [min, max) interval. But, first we should factor a little bit the problem by subtracting min from the second interval:
[0 .................................... 1)
[min - min ............................ max - min)
This gives:
[0 .................................... 1)
[0 .................................... max - min)
We may now apply Math.random and then calculate the correspondent. Let's choose a random number:
Math.random()
|
[0 .................................... 1)
[0 .................................... max - min)
|
x (what we need)
So, in order to find x, we would do:
x = Math.random() * (max - min);
Don't forget to add min back, so that we get a number in the [min, max) interval:
x = Math.random() * (max - min) + min;
That was the first function from MDN. The second one, returns an integer between min and max, both inclusive.
Now for getting integers, you could use round, ceil or floor.
You could use Math.round(Math.random() * (max - min)) + min, this however gives a non-even distribution. Both, min and max only have approximately half the chance to roll:
min...min+0.5...min+1...min+1.5 ... max-0.5....max
βββββ¬ββββββββββββββ¬ββββββββββββββ ... βββββββββββ¬βββ β Math.round()
min min+1 max
With max excluded from the interval, it has an even less chance to roll than min.
With Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min +1)) + min you have a perfectly even distribution.
min... min+1... ... max-1... max.... (max+1 is excluded from interval)
βββββ¬βββββββββ¬ββββββββ ... ββββββ¬βββββββββ¬ββββ β Math.floor()
min min+1 max-1 max
You can't use ceil() and -1 in that equation because max now had a slightly less chance to roll, but you can roll the (unwanted) min-1 result too.
var randomnumber = Math.floor(Math.random() * (maximum - minimum + 1)) + minimum;
This answer is outdated. See this answer for a more up-to-date explanation.
Math.random() returns a Number value with a positive sign, greater than or equal to 0 but less than 1, chosen randomly or pseudo randomly with approximately uniform distribution over that range, using an implementation-dependent algorithm or strategy.
Here's V8's implementation:
uint32_t V8::Random() {
// Random number generator using George Marsaglia's MWC algorithm.
static uint32_t hi = 0;
static uint32_t lo = 0;
// Initialize seed using the system random(). If one of the seeds
// should ever become zero again, or if random() returns zero, we
// avoid getting stuck with zero bits in hi or lo by reinitializing
// them on demand.
if (hi == 0) hi = random();
if (lo == 0) lo = random();
// Mix the bits.
hi = 36969 * (hi & 0xFFFF) + (hi >> 16);
lo = 18273 * (lo & 0xFFFF) + (lo >> 16);
return (hi << 16) + (lo & 0xFFFF);
}
Source: http://dl.packetstormsecurity.net/papers/general/Google_Chrome_3.0_Beta_Math.random_vulnerability.pdf
Here are a couple of related threads on StackOverflow:
- Why is Google Chrome's Math.random number generator not *that* random?
- How random is JavaScript's Math.random?
See There's Math.random(), and then there's Math.random():
Until recently (up to version 4.9.40), V8βs choice of PRNG was MWC1616 (multiply with carry, combining two 16-bit parts). It uses 64 bits of internal state and looks roughly like this:
uint32_t state0 = 1; uint32_t state1 = 2; uint32_t mwc1616() { state0 = 18030 * (state0 & 0xffff) + (state0 >> 16); state1 = 30903 * (state1 & 0xffff) + (state1 >> 16); return state0 << 16 + (state1 & 0xffff); }The 32-bit value is then turned into a floating point number between 0 and 1 in agreement with the specification.
MWC1616 uses little memory and is pretty fast to compute, but unfortunately offers sub-par quality:
- The number of random values it can generate is limited to 232 as opposed to the 252 numbers between 0 and 1 that double precision floating point can represent.
- The more significant upper half of the result is almost entirely dependent on the value of state0. The period length would be at most 232, but instead of few large permutation cycles, there are many short ones. With a badly chosen initial state, the cycle length could be less than 40 million.
- It fails many statistical tests in the TestU01 suite.
This has been pointed out to us, and having understood the problem and after some research, we decided to reimplement Math.random based on an algorithm called xorshift128+. It uses 128 bits of internal state, has a period length of 2128 - 1, and passes all tests from the TestU01 suite.
The new implementation landed in V8 4.9.41.0 within a few days of us becoming aware of the issue. It will become available with Chrome 49. Both Firefox and Safari switched to xorshift128+ as well.
The xorshift128+ implementation looks like this:
static inline void XorShift128(uint64_t* state0, uint64_t* state1) {
uint64_t s1 = *state0;
uint64_t s0 = *state1;
*state0 = s0;
s1 ^= s1 << 23;
s1 ^= s1 >> 17;
s1 ^= s0;
s1 ^= s0 >> 26;
*state1 = s1;
}
Hi all,
I'm learning JS through FCC and it's going okay so far. I'm not a very mathematically inclined person, however, so I struggle with some concepts.
I'm struggling to understand how the following code works;
Math.floor(Math.random() * (max - min + 1)) + min
I tried writing out an example on paper and used 10 and 5 as max and min respectively.
Math.floor(Math.random() * (10 - 5 + 1)) + 5
wouldn't this mean that I can get numbers higher than the max though? Say I get a randomly generated 0.99; well 0.99 * (6) + 5 = 10.94 which is greater than my max of 10?
Am I doing this wrong?