std::random_device::entropy

 

C++

Language

Standard library headers

Concepts

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Algorithms library

Iterators library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

 

Numerics library

Common mathematical functions

Floating-point environment

Complex numbers

Numeric arrays

Pseudo-random number generation

Compile-time rational arithmetic (C++11)

Generic numeric operations

iota (C++11)

accumulate

inner_product

adjacent_difference

partial_sum

 

Pseudo-random number generation

Engines and engine adaptors

linear_congruential_engine (C++11)

mersenne_twister_engine (C++11)

subtract_with_carry_engine (C++11)

discard_block_engine (C++11)

independent_bits_engine (C++11)

shuffle_order_engine (C++11)

Generators

random_device (C++11)

Distributions

Uniform distributions

uniform_int_distribution (C++11)

uniform_real_distribution (C++11)

generate_canonical (C++11)

Bernoulli distributions

bernoulli_distribution (C++11)

binomial_distribution (C++11)

negative_binomial_distribution (C++11)

geometric_distribution (C++11)

Poisson distributions

poisson_distribution (C++11)

exponential_distribution (C++11)

gamma_distribution (C++11)

weibull_distribution (C++11)

extreme_value_distribution (C++11)

Normal distributions

normal_distribution (C++11)

lognormal_distribution (C++11)

chi_squared_distribution (C++11)

cauchy_distribution (C++11)

fisher_f_distribution (C++11)

student_t_distribution (C++11)

Sampling distributions

discrete_distribution (C++11)

piecewise_constant_distribution (C++11)

piecewise_linear_distribution (C++11)

Seed Sequences

seed_seq (C++11)

C library

rand

srand

RAND_MAX

 

std::random_device

Member functions

random_device::random_device

Generation

random_device::operator()

Characteristics

random_device::entropy

random_device::min

random_device::max

 

double entropy() const;		(since C++11)

Obtains an estimate of the random number device entropy, which is a floating-point value between min() and log
2(max()+1). If the device has n states whose individual probabilities are P
0,...,P
n-1, the device probability S is defined as

S = -Σn-1
i=0P
ilog(P
i)

A deterministic random number generator (e.g. a pseudo-random engine) has entropy zero.

Exceptions

noexcept specification:  

noexcept

  

Return value

The value of the device entropy, or zero if not applicable.

Notes

This function is not fully implemented in some standard libraries. For example, gcc and clang always return zero even though the device is non-deterministic. In comparison, Visual C++ always returns 32, and boost.random returns 10.

Example

Example output on one of the implementations

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <random>
 
int main()
{
    std::random_device rd;
    std::cout << rd.entropy() << '\n';
}

Possible output:

32