On the nature of random numbers

Random numbers are useful in many different areas – one of them is the generation of random strings. As a result, this tutorial will first generate random numbers and use them to generate random strings. At the end of the day these random strings will be used as difficult-to-guess passwords.

Strictly speaking, a sequence of numbers is considered to be statistically random when you cannot find any recognisable patterns or regularities in it. Each sequence of random numbers starts with value that is named seed – therefore the seed is the most important property of a random number generator because it initialises the entire process. The seed itself does not need to be random or difficult to guess and is usually generated from the system clock or some other system property.

Although there is no such thing as a truly random generator, most of the times, you just require that your numbers are “random enough” because you don’t need an infinite number of them. In other words, you do not need 1,000 random numbers in order to generate a string with five characters.

Please note that knowing the required theory well is essential for the success of a project and should not be skipped in order to save time. It is better to spend some time studying the related theory than solving the wrong problem.