Random float number generation

Question

How do I generate random floats in C++?

I thought I could take the integer rand and divide it by something, would that be adequate enough?

Answer 1

In modern c++ you may use the header that came with c++11.
To get random float's you can use std::uniform_real_distribution<>.

You can use a function to generate the numbers and if you don't want the numbers to be the same all the time, set the engine and distribution to be static.
Example:

float get_random()
{
    static std::default_random_engine e;
    static std::uniform_real_distribution<> dis(0, 1); // rage 0 - 1
    return dis(e);
}

It's ideal to place the float's in a container such as std::vector:

int main()
{
    std::vector nums;
    for (int i{}; i != 5; ++i) // Generate 5 random floats
        nums.emplace_back(get_random());

    for (const auto& i : nums) std::cout << i << " ";
}

Example output:

0.0518757 0.969106 0.0985112 0.0895674 0.895542