Biased Random Number Generator

Question

I am looking for a random number generator that can be biased. For instance, say I want a random number between 1-5, with the probability being:

1: Comes up 20% of t

Answer 1

Coming late to the party on this one. Here is the C++0x answer:

#include 
#include 
#include 

int main()
{
    // Set up distribution
    double interval[] = {1,   2,   3,   4,   5,   6};
    double weights[] = {  .2,   .1,  .4,  .25, .05};
    std::piecewise_constant_distribution<> dist(std::begin(interval),
                                                std::end(interval),
                                                std::begin(weights));
    // Choose generator
    std::mt19937 gen;  // seed as wanted
    // Demonstrate by pouring into avg[rand-1]
    const unsigned N = 1000000;
    double avg[sizeof(weights) / sizeof(weights[0])] = {0};
    for (unsigned i = 0; i < N; ++i)
        avg[static_cast(dist(gen)) - 1]++;
    // Comute averages
    for (double* i = std::begin(avg); i < std::end(avg); ++i)
        *i /= N;
    // Display
    for (unsigned i = 1; i <= sizeof(avg)/sizeof(avg[0]); ++i)
        std::cout << "avg[" << i << "] = " << avg[i-1] << '\n';
}

Which for me outputs:

avg[1] = 0.199779
avg[2] = 0.100002
avg[3] = 0.400111
avg[4] = 0.250257
avg[5] = 0.049851