Thread: Random chars in a certain range

I'm trying to generate 1024 random numbers, staying within the first half of the ASCII table (everything < 127) but not including anything below 33. Basically I want to stay with characters which are displayable while staying away from the ones which only "display" in a console window.

The following works, but there is a weird... thing. I can't explain it in more detail other than the number generated is occasionally 3435973836. No matter how I twist this, that number appears no less than 100 times.

Code:

int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
    char    data[1024];
    char    c = 0;
    unsigned debug_data[1024];

    memset (data, 0, 1024);

    srand ((unsigned) time (0));

    for (unsigned i = 0; i < 1024; i++) {
                c = rand () / (RAND_MAX / 127 + 1);  // stay within lower 127?
                if (! (c > 33)) continue;
                key[i] = c;
                debug_data[i] = (unsigned) c;
    }

    return 0;
}

I build up debug_data so I can see the ASCII values for each character it outputs. That weird random value appears randomly...

Is there anything glaringly wrong with it?

Thanks buddy

You might want to read Prelude's article on the subject: http://eternallyconfuzzled.com/tuts/random.html