Since this is about remapping a uniform distribution to another with a different range, this is not a PHP question specifically although I am using PHP.
I have a cryptographicaly secure random number generator that gives me evenly distributed integers (uniform discrete distribution) between 0
and PHP_INT_MAX
.
How do I remap these results to fit into a different range in an efficient manner?
Currently I am using $mappedRandomNumber = $randomNumber % ($range + 1) + $min
where $range = $max - $min
, but that obvioulsy doesn't work since the first PHP_INT_MAX%$range
integers from the range have a higher chance to be picked, breaking the uniformity of the distribution.
This is what I ended up doing. PRNG 101 (if it does not fit, ignore and generate again). Not very sophisticated, but simple:
public function rand($min = 0, $max = null){
// pow(2,$numBits-1) calculated as (pow(2,$numBits-2)-1) + pow(2,$numBits-2)
// to avoid overflow when $numBits is the number of bits of PHP_INT_MAX
$maxSafe = (int) floor(
((pow(2,8*$this->intByteCount-2)-1) + pow(2,8*$this->intByteCount-2))
/
($max - $min)
) * ($max - $min);
// discards anything above the last interval N * {0 .. max - min -1}
// that fits in {0 .. 2^(intBitCount-1)-1}
do {
$chars = $this->getRandomBytesString($this->intByteCount);
$n = 0;
for ($i=0;$i<$this->intByteCount;$i++) {$n|=(ord($chars[$i])<<(8*($this->intByteCount-$i-1)));}
} while (abs($n)>$maxSafe);
return (abs($n)%($max-$min+1))+$min;
}
Any improvements are welcomed.
(Full code on https://github.com/elcodedocle/cryptosecureprng/blob/master/CryptoSecurePRNG.php)