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

I wasn't satisfied by any of the answers so far so I wrote a new random float function. It makes bitwise assumptions about the float data type. It still needs a rand() function with at least 15 random bits.

//Returns a random number in the range [0.0f, 1.0f).  Every
//bit of the mantissa is randomized.
float rnd(void){
  //Generate a random number in the range [0.5f, 1.0f).
  unsigned int ret = 0x3F000000 | (0x7FFFFF & ((rand() << 8) ^ rand()));
  unsigned short coinFlips;

  //If the coin is tails, return the number, otherwise
  //divide the random number by two by decrementing the
  //exponent and keep going. The exponent starts at 63.
  //Each loop represents 15 random bits, a.k.a. 'coin flips'.
  #define RND_INNER_LOOP() \
    if( coinFlips & 1 ) break; \
    coinFlips >>= 1; \
    ret -= 0x800000
  for(;;){
    coinFlips = rand();
    RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP();
    //At this point, the exponent is 60, 45, 30, 15, or 0.
    //If the exponent is 0, then the number equals 0.0f.
    if( ! (ret & 0x3F800000) ) return 0.0f;
    RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP();
    RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP();
    RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP();
    RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP(); RND_INNER_LOOP();
  }
  return *((float *)(&ret));
}