A thread-safe global random number generator using C++ <random> and <mutex>

In a previous post, Sandro showed how to use the C++ <random> header to define a global random number generator (RNG). If at some point the user decides to parallelize their program, they would have to make the global RNG thread-safe. This requires only a small modification.

I have copied Sandro's code and added thread-safety using the C++ (with standard at least c++11) headers <thread> and <mutex>. In the header file thread_safe_random.hpp, the functions RANDOM and Seed are declared.

The C++ file thread_safe_random.cpp defines the functions RANDOM and Seed, and the RNG and uniform distribution as before. Additionally, a mutex my_rng_mutex is defined to guard my_rng. I am using a lock_guard to lock and release the mutex. When one thread of execution calls the function RANDOM, it acquires the mutex. Any other thread that calls RANDOM, has to wait until the mutex is released.

In order to demonstrate thread_safe_random, I created max threads in the main function that use the auxiliary function fetch_random_number to call RANDOM.

The result should look like

$ g++ --std=c++11 -pthread main.cpp thread_safe_random.cpp -o test_safe_random
$ ./test_safe_random
0.284779
0.243487
0.161906
0.338338
0.235765
0.502853
0.389262
0.165401
0.244871
0.194046

However, the order of these numbers can change each time you execute the program. This means that the program is no longer deterministic (although we can argue about what it means to be deterministic or not), because the OS determines the order in which the threads call RANDOM. Another problem with this implementation is that it will be slow when each thread needs many random numbers.

The simplest example on c++11 <random>

For some reasons, the internet lacks a beginner-level tutorial on how to use the c++11 <random> library when your code is made up of different files.
This is not a tutorial, this is just what I managed to put together...

I want

• one global random engine (e.g. the mersenne twister)
• one real-value uniform distribution in the interval [0,1), let's call this function RANDOM()
• to be able to call RANDOM() from anywhere in my code.

There are three files: random.h, random.cpp and main.cpp (any additional .cpp file that includes random.h can use the function RANDOM() ).
The content of the files is as follow:
 
random.h

// random.h
#ifndef _RND_HH_
#define _RND_HH_

#include <random> //--- FOR THIS YOU NEED c++11, enable with -std=c++11 flag

// Declare engine - single instance for the whole code
//extern std::mt19937 my_rng;
extern std::mt19937_64 my_rng;

//Declare distributions:
extern std::uniform_real_distribution<double> my_unif_real_dist;
//extern std::uniform_int_distribution<double> my_unif_int_dist;

int Seed(int seed);
double RANDOM();

#endif 

// end of random.h 

random.cpp

//random.cpp
#include <stdio.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <chrono>
#include "random.h"

//std::mt19937 my_rng {}; 
std::mt19937_64 my_rng {}; // Defines an engine
std::uniform_real_distribution<double> my_unif_real_dist(0., 1.); //Define distribution
// Function to seed the random number generator from main file
// useful if you want the seed from a parameter file
// a negative value for seed gets you a random seed
// outputs the seed itself
int Seed(int seed)
{
  if (seed < 0) {
    long rseed=static_cast<long unsigned int>(std::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now().time_since_epoch().count());
    std::cerr << "Randomizing random generator, seed is "<<rseed<<std::endl;
    my_rng.seed(rseed);
    return rseed;
  } else {
    std::cerr << "User-provided seed is "<<seed<<std::endl;
    my_rng.seed(seed);
    return seed;
  }
}
// This is the function to call if you want a random number in the interval [0,1)
double RANDOM(void)
{
  return my_unif_real_dist(my_rng);
}
// end of random.cpp

And finally for the main.cpp file

//main.cpp
#include <stdio.h>
#include <iostream>
#include "random.h"

int main()
{
  int max = 10;
  int my_seed = 235;
  
  int my_new_Seed = Seed(my_seed);
  
  for(int i=0; i<max;++i){
    double one_random_number = RANDOM();
    std::cerr << RANDOM() << std::endl;
  }
}// end of main.cpp

That's it! This is really all you need.
Compile it with:
g++ -std=c++11 random.cpp main.cpp -o my_pretty_random_numbers
and happy random number generation.

By the way, this seems to work fine on my machine (running Ubuntu 18).
Can this be improved in simplicity and/or performance? Are there bugs?
Please let me know!