How do I generate random integers within a specific range in Java?

Lewis D.

The Problem

You need to generate random integers within a specific range. Is there a way to do it in Java?

The Solution

There are a number of ways to generate random integers confined to a specific range in Java, and the problem is simplified by the several approaches the built-in Java libraries offer.

Let’s take a look at a couple of solutions that rely on core Java, excluding the numerous third-party libraries offering similar functionality.

We’ll consider the following randomized range integer-generating approaches:

• Random
• SecureRandom
• ThreadLocalRandom
• Math

The best solution for your needs depends on the application you need random integers to be generated for.

Random

We can use the java.util.Random class to create a new random number generator, which we can then use to retrieve a pseudorandom, uniformly distributed int value.

To get our random number, we’ll call the nextInt(int bound) method. This method returns an int in the range starting at 0 up to, but not including, the bound value we supply. Let’s take a closer look:

public int randomRangeRandom(int start, int end) {
    Random random = new Random();
    int number = random.nextInt((end - start) + 1) + start; // see explanation below
    return number;
}
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Here, the bound value calculation defines the upper value in our range. For example, if we set our start and end to 5 and 10 respectively, we’ll pass in 6 ((end - start) + 1) as our bound. The nextInt() method call will generate a number between 0 and 6 (exclusive) and then we’ll add the start value (5) which gets us back into our desired range.

SecureRandom

We can also use the java.security.SecureRandom class when we require cryptographically strong random numbers. The SecureRandom class is designed to return a non-deterministic output, which is useful for high unpredictability but comes at a performance cost. Because SecureRandom extends Random, the code example for randomRangeRandom() can be followed, initializing the SecureRandom class instead of the Random class.

Note: Make sure you have imported java.security.SecureRandom or java.security.* because while Random is in java.util, SecureRandom is in java.security.

ThreadLocalRandom

The third random number generating approach is best for multithreaded applications. Like SecureRandom, the java.util.concurrent.ThreadLocalRandom class also extends Random, and is therefore a thread-safe substitute for Random. Note that ThreadLocalRandom does not inherit any attributes of SecureRandom, so it’s not a cryptographically secure random number generator.

public int randomRangeThreadLocalRandom(int start, int end) {
    int number = ThreadLocalRandom.current().nextInt(start, end);
    return number;
}
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Note: Make sure you import java.util.concurrent.* or java.util.concurrent.ThreadLocalRandom.

Math

Finally, we can generate a random number using the java.lang.Math class. The Math class provides a random() method, but this method returns a double value from 0.0 (inclusive) to 1.0 (exclusive). This means we will have to write some additional code to generate an int value within our specified range.

To make this clearer, let’s look at the output of executing each step when calling randomRangeMath(5, 10):

public int randomRangeMath(int start, int end) {
    int range = end - start; // calculate our range:  5
    double randomDouble = Math.random(); // returns a double: 0.3
    double calc = (randomDouble * range) + start; // calculation returns 6.5
    long number = Math.round(calc); // 6.5 is rounded up to 7
    
    return (int) number;
}
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