A simple tutorial on C++11's random number generators.

main.cc

// Compile with:
// $ clang++ -O3 -std=C++11 main.cc -o main

#include <iostream>
#include <random> // The header for the generators.
#include <ctime> // To seed the generator.

using namespace std;

int main() {
  // Seed with time and print the seed:
  const unsigned int seed = time(0);
  cout << "Seed = " << seed << endl; // cout is a way to print in C++, endl ends the line.
  
  // Generating random numbers with C++11's random requires an engine and a distribution.
  // This is an engine based on the Mersenne Twister 19937 (64 bits):
  mt19937_64 rng(seed);
  
  // Then we create a distribution. We'll start with a uniform distribution in the
  // default [0, 1) range:
  uniform_real_distribution<double> unif;

  cout << "\nUniform floats [0, 1): ";
  for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) { // Sample 20 numbers.
    // To get a random number, send the engine (rng) as argument to the distribution object:
    cout << unif(rng) << ' ';
  }
  cout << endl;

  // Now we create another uniform distribution for integers in the [42, 512) range:
  uniform_int_distribution<int> unii(42, 512);
  cout << "\nUniform integers [42, 512): ";
  for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
    // Again we send the generator as argument to the distribution to get numbers:
    cout << unii(rng) << ' ';
  }
  cout << endl;
  
  // C++11 supports all kind of distributions (Normal, Binomial, Gamma, Weibull...).
  // See this page for more info: en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/numeric/random
 
  // A last example: normal distribution with mean 5 and std 2:
  normal_distribution<double> norm(5, 2);
  cout << "\nNormal with mean 5, std 2: ";
  for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
    cout << norm(rng) << ' ';
  }
  cout << endl;

  return 0;
}

Congrats, a Google search for "mt19937_64 example" shows your gist as the #4 result!

One nit, though: uniform_int_distribution uses closed intervals, unlike uniform_real_distribution.

Here's a fix: https://gist.github.com/jorgbrown/252e6070d905e358ab1ee9be62f5f07e/revisions

Sad that gists don't allow pull requests...