A random number generator
At the beginning of the program, and whenever the ball hits a wall:
A description of the rand function is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Description of the rand function.
| Returns a pseudo-random integral number in the range
0 to RAND_MAX. This number is generated by an algorithm that returns a sequence of apparently non-related numbers each time it is called. This algorithm uses a seed to generate the series, which should be initialized to some distinctive value using srand. RAND_MAX is a constant defined in <cstdlib>. Its default value may vary between implementations but it is granted to be at least 32767. A typical way to generate pseudo-random numbers in a determined range using rand is to use the modulo of the returned value by the range span and add the initial value of the range: ( value % 100 ) is in
the range 0 to 99 Notice though that this modulo operation does not generate a truly uniformly distributed random number in the span (since in most cases lower numbers are slightly more likely), but it is generally a good approximation for short spans. |