A portable C random number generator

Abstract

Proliferation of computers with varying word sizes has led to increases in software use where random number generation is required. Several techniques have been developed. Criteria of randomness, portability, period, reproducibility, variety, speed, and storage are used to evaluate developed generation methods. The Tausworthe method is the only method to meet the portability requirement, and is chosen to be implemented. A C language implementation is proposed as a possible implementation and test results are presented to confirm the acceptability of the proposed code.