Calculator soup random number generator

How it works

Calculator Soup is a site of calculators. Its random-number page is a form, not a spinning toy with hidden bounds. You enter a minimum and a maximum. You enter how many numbers to generate. You choose whether a value may repeat inside that list. You can sort the output or leave it in the order it was drawn. You can ask for more than one set, and say whether numbers are reused across sets or taken out of the pool. Then you generate and, if you need a record, copy the list in the format the page offers: commas, spaces, a spreadsheet row, or a spreadsheet column.

Inclusive ends are how that form is described: the minimum and the maximum are allowed. If you set 1 and 100, both 1 and 100 can appear. If you set 0 and 9 and ask for four numbers, you are drawing digits, not a single four-digit integer. That digit method is how the same page walks through a PIN-style example. A single integer from 1000 to 9999 is the other way to get four digits. The form will do either. It will not guess which you meant.

The site describes its generator as a cryptographically secure pseudorandom generator in PHP, using the language's random-integer function. That is stronger than a casual classroom spinner. It is still a computer program. Treat it as a tool for draws you can see: lists, teaching examples, game numbers, a PIN you will store somewhere safe. Do not treat a copied list on a shared screen as a secret that only you know.

Settings that actually change the list

Range is first. Count is second. Repeats are third. Sort is fourth, and it does not change which values were drawn; it only changes the order you see. Sets are fifth: several lists from the same rules. “Numbers reused” between sets means each set starts from the full range. “Removed” means a value used in one set does not return in the next, which only works until the pool is empty.

Min and max: both included; the range is the whole job. How many: the length of one list. Allow repeats: yes for a stream; no for unique values in that list. Sort: display only; skip it when order is the code.

Sets: extra lists; decide whether the pool resets. A unique list cannot be longer than the range. Asking for 20 unique integers from 1 through 10 should fail or wrap into duplicates. Check the output. If you asked for no repeats and you see a repeat, the setting did not take. Generate again after you fix it. Do not argue from a list you already know is the wrong mode.

A calculator that asks for a minimum and a maximum is being honest. Fill both. A blank end is not “random”; it is an unfinished form.

What to use this calculator for, and what to copy

Use it when you need a visible draw with written bounds: shuffle a class of 30, pick five unique tickets from 1 to 200, print three sets of lottery-style numbers from a stated pool. Copy the numbers with the settings. “Min 1, max 50, six unique, unsorted” plus the line of results is a complete note. “We used Calculator Soup” is not. The next person cannot replay a missing maximum.

Do not sort a PIN. Do not allow repeats if the job is unique seats. Do not forbid repeats if the job is a die-like stream. The form will obey the last combination you left in the boxes, including the wrong one. Glance at the boxes before you glance at the answer. Then save the answer. Refreshing the page is a new draw. Memory of the previous line is not a backup.

If you need letters as well as digits, that is a different calculator on the same site. If you need a password, use a password generator and a place to store the result. This page's job is integers in a range. Keep the job small and the settings visible, and the list will mean something tomorrow.