The C++ 17 standard bring us a lot of useful methods, templates and algorithms. One of the great algorithms is std::sample defined in the <algorithm> header that samples at most n elements uniformly from a given range. In this post, we explain the std::sample algorithm and how we can use it with an mt19937 random generator.
What is the std::sample algorithm in C++ 17 and beyond?
The std::sample algorithm is defined in <algorithm> header that samples at most n elements uniformly from a given range into the output iterator and random numbers can be generated by using a random number generator function. Generally std::mt19937{} is used as random generator and std::random_device{}() is used random generator device.
The std::sample algorithm is defined as a template algorithm in C++17 as shown below.
Here, first_in and last_in are the iterators that defines range of input. n is number of elements to be sampled into output iterator, function is random number generator function.
Is there a full example about the std::sample algorithm in C++ 17 and beyond?
Here is a full example about std::sample in C++ 17.
Here is the output,
For more details about this feature in C++17 standard, please see these papers; P0220R1 , N4562#alg.random.sample
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