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

#include 
#include 
#include 

using namespace std;

/* single precision float offers 24bit worth of linear distance from 1.0f to 0.0f */
float getval() {
    /* rand() has min 16bit, but we need a 24bit random number. */
    uint_least32_t r = (rand() & 0xffff) + ((rand() & 0x00ff) << 16);
    /* 5.9604645E-8 is (1f - 0.99999994f), 0.99999994f is the first value less than 1f. */
    return (double)r * 5.9604645E-8;
}

int main()
{
    srand(time(NULL));
...

I couldn't post two answers, so here is the second solution. log2 random numbers, massive bias towards 0.0f but it's truly a random float 1.0f to 0.0f.

#include 
#include 
#include 

using namespace std;

float getval () {
    union UNION {
        uint32_t i;
        float f;
    } r;
    /* 3 because it's 0011, the first bit is the float's sign.
     * Clearing the second bit eliminates values > 1.0f.
     */
    r.i = (rand () & 0xffff) + ((rand () & 0x3fff) << 16);
    return r.f;
}

int main ()
{
    srand (time (NULL));
...