NextBytes Method
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Random.NextBytes Method

[ This article is for Windows Phone 8 developers. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation. ]

Fills the elements of a specified array of bytes with random numbers.

Namespace:  System
Assembly:  mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

public virtual void NextBytes(
	byte[] buffer
)

Parameters

buffer
Type: System.Byte []
An array of bytes to contain random numbers.

ExceptionCondition
ArgumentNullException

buffer is null.

Each element of the array of bytes is set to a random number greater than or equal to zero, and less than or equal to MaxValue.

To generate a cryptographically secured random number suitable for creating a random password, for example, use a method such as RNGCryptoServiceProvider.GetBytes.

Notes to Inheritors

If you derive a class from Random and override the Sample method, the distribution provided by the derived class implementation of the Sample method is not used in calls to the base class implementation of the NextBytes method. Instead, the uniform distribution returned by the base Random class is used. This behavior improves the overall performance of the Random class. To modify this behavior to call the Sample method in the derived class, you must also override the NextBytes method.

The following code example demonstrates how to use the NextBytes method to fill an array of bytes with random byte values.


Random rnd = new Random();
Byte[] b = new Byte[10];
rnd.NextBytes(b);
outputBlock.Text += "The Random bytes are: " + "\n";
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
   outputBlock.Text += i;
   outputBlock.Text += ":";
   outputBlock.Text += b[i] + "\n";
}


Windows Phone OS

Supported in: 8.1, 8.0, 7.1, 7.0

Windows Phone

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