Library Random numbers are useful in a variety of applications. You should read the concepts documentation for an introduction and the definition of the basic concepts.
Documentation is also available.
Rationale The methods for generating and evaluating deterministic and non-deterministic random numbers differ radically. Thus, the random number library is split into separate header files, mirroring the two different application domains. In November 1999, Jeet Sukumaran proposed a framework based on virtual functions, and later sketched a template-based approach. Dave Abrahams highlighted quantization issues. The first public release of this random number library materialized in March 2000 after extensive discussions on the boost mailing list.