rand
- rand
Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to
and less than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is omitted, the value
1
is used. Currently EXPR with the valueis also special-cased as
1
(this was undocumented before Perl 5.8.0 and is subject to change in future versions of Perl). Automatically callssrand
unlesssrand
has already been called. See alsosrand
.Apply
int()
to the value returned byrand()
if you want random integers instead of random fractional numbers. For example,returns a random integer between
and
9
, inclusive.(Note: If your rand function consistently returns numbers that are too large or too small, then your version of Perl was probably compiled with the wrong number of RANDBITS.)
rand()
is not cryptographically secure. You should not rely on it in security-sensitive situations. As of this writing, a number of third-party CPAN modules offer random number generators intended by their authors to be cryptographically secure, including: Data::Entropy, Crypt::Random, Math::Random::Secure, and Math::TrulyRandom.