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Get a numer decimal part as Integer using only math

Edit: This has to do with how computers handle floating point operations, a fact that every programmer faces once in a lifetime. I didn't understand this correctly when I asked the question.
I know the simplest way to start dealing with this would be:
val floatNumber: Float = 123.456f
val decimalPart = floatNumber - floatNumber.toInt() //This would be 0.456 (I don't care about precision as this is not the main objective of my question)
Now in a real world with a pen and a piece of paper, if I want to "convert" the decimal part 0.456 to integer, I just need to multiply 0.456 * 1000, and I get the desired result, which is 456 (an integer number).
Many proposed solutions suggest splitting the number as string and extracting the decimal part this way, but I need the solution to be obtained mathematically, not using strings.
Given a number, with an unknown number of decimals (convert to string and counting chars after . or , is not acceptable), I need to "extract" it's decimal part as an integer using only math.
Read questions like this with no luck:
How to get the decimal part of a float?
How to extract fractional digits of double/BigDecimal
If someone knows a kotlin language solution, it would be great. I will post this question also on the math platform just in case.
How do I get whole and fractional parts from double in JSP/Java?
Update:
Is there a "mathematical" way to "calculate" how many decimals a number has? (It is obvious when you convert to string and count the chars, but I need to avoid using strings) It would be great cause calculating: decimal (0.456) * 10 * number of decimals(3) will produce the desired result.
Update 2
This is not my use-case, but I guess it will clarify the idea:
Suppose you want to calculate a constant(such as PI), and want to return an integer with at most 50 digits of the decimal part of the constant. The constant doesn't have to be necessarily infinite (can be for example 0.5, in which case "5" will be returned)

I would just multiply the fractional number by 10 (or move the decimal point to the right) until it has no fractional part left:
public static long fractionalDigitsLong(BigDecimal value) {
BigDecimal fractional = value.remainder(BigDecimal.ONE);
long digits;
do {
fractional = fractional.movePointRight(1); // or multiply(BigDecimal.TEN)
digits = fractional.longValue();
} while (fractional.compareTo(BigDecimal.valueOf(digits)) != 0);
return digits;
}
Note 1: using BigDecimal to avoid floating point precision problems
Note 2: using compareTo since equals also compares the scale ("0.0" not equals "0.00")
(sure the BigDecimal already knows the size of the fractional part, just the value returned by scale())
Complement:
If using BigDecimal the whole problem can be compressed to:
public static BigInteger fractionalDigits(BigDecimal value) {
return value.remainder(BigDecimal.ONE).stripTrailingZeros().unscaledValue();
}
stripping zeros can be suppressed if desired

I am not sure if it counts against you on this specific problem if you use some String converters with a method(). That is one way to get the proper answer. I know that you stated you couldn't use String, but would you be able to use Strings within a Custom made method? That could get you the answer that you need with precision. Here is the class that could help us convert the number:
class NumConvert{
String theNum;
public NumConvert(String theNum) {
this.theNum = theNum;
}
public int convert() {
String a = String.valueOf(theNum);
String[] b = a.split("\\.");
String b2 = b[1];
int zeros = b2.length();
String num = "1";
for(int x = 0; x < zeros; x++) {
num += "0";
}
float c = Float.parseFloat(theNum);
int multiply = Integer.parseInt(num);
float answer = c - (int)c;
int integerForm = (int)(answer * multiply);
return integerForm;
}
}
Then within your main class:
public class ChapterOneBasics {
public static void main(String[] args) throws java.io.IOException{
NumConvert n = new NumConvert("123.456");
NumConvert q = new NumConvert("123.45600128");
System.out.println(q.convert());
System.out.println(n.convert());
}
}
output:
45600128
456

Float or Double are imprecise, just an approximation - without precision. Hence 12.345 is somewhere between 12.3449... and 12.3450... .
This means that 12.340 cannot be distinghuished from 12.34. The "decimal part" would be 34 divided by 100.
Also 12.01 would have a "decimal part" 1 divided by 100, and too 12.1 would have 1 divided by 10.
So a complete algorith would be (using java):
int[] decimalsAndDivider(double x) {
int decimalPart = 0;
int divider = 1;
final double EPS = 0.001;
for (;;) {
double error = x - (int)x;
if (-EPS < error && error < EPS) {
break;
}
x *= 10;
decimalPart = 10 * decimalPart + ((int)(x + EPS) % 10);
divider *= 10;
}
return new int[] { decimalPart, divider };
}

I posted the below solution yesterday after testing it for a while, and later found that it does not always work due to problems regarding precision of floats, doubles and bigdecimals. My conclusion is that this problem is unsolvable if you want infinite precision:
So I re-post the code just for reference:
fun getDecimalCounter(d: Double): Int {
var temp = d
var tempInt = Math.floor(d)
var counter = 0
while ((temp - tempInt) > 0.0 ) {
temp *= 10
tempInt = Math.floor(temp)
counter++
}
return counter
}
fun main(args: Array <String> ) {
var d = 3.14159
if (d < 0) d = -d
val decimalCounter = getDecimalCounter(d)
val decimalPart = (d - Math.floor(d))
var decimalPartInt = Math.round(decimalPart * 10.0.pow(decimalCounter))
while (decimalPartInt % 10 == 0L) {
decimalPartInt /= 10
}
println(decimalPartInt)
}
I dropped floats because of lesser precision and used doubles.
The final rounding is also necessary due to precision.

Generate a random integer with a specified number of digits Java [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How do I generate random integers within a specific range in Java?
(72 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
I ran into this problem today and I'm sure there is an elegant solution I am not thinking of.
Let's say I want to generate a random integer(or long) in Java with a specified number of digits, where this number of digits can change.
I.e. pass in a number of digits into a method, and return a random number with the specified number of digits
Ex.) N = 3, generate a random number between 100-999; N = 4, generate a random number between 1000-9999
private long generateRandomNumber(int n){
/*Generate a random number with n number of digits*/
}
My attempt so far (this works, but it seems messy)
private long generateRandomNumber(int n){
String randomNumString = "";
Random r = new Random();
//Generate the first digit from 1-9
randomNumString += (r.nextInt(9) + 1);
//Generate the remaining digits between 0-9
for(int x = 1; x < n; x++){
randomNumString += r.nextInt(9);
}
//Parse and return
return Long.parseLong(randomNumString);
}
Is there a better/more efficient solution than this?
*There are lots of solutions for generating random numbers in a specified range, I was more curious on the best way to generate random numbers given a set number of digits, as well as making the solution robust enough to handle any number of digits.
I did not want to have to pass in a min and max, but rather just the number of digits needed

private long generateRandomNumber(int n) {
long min = (long) Math.pow(10, n - 1);
return ThreadLocalRandom.current().nextLong(min, min * 10);
}
nextLong produces random numbers between lower bound inclusive and upper bound exclusive so calling it with parameters (1_000, 10_000) for example results in numbers 1000 to 9999.
Old Random did not get those nice new features unfortunately. But there is basically no reason to continue to use it anyways.

public static int randomInt(int digits) {
int minimum = (int) Math.pow(10, digits - 1); // minimum value with 2 digits is 10 (10^1)
int maximum = (int) Math.pow(10, digits) - 1; // maximum value with 2 digits is 99 (10^2 - 1)
Random random = new Random();
return minimum + random.nextInt((maximum - minimum) + 1);
}

You can simply disregard the numbers that are not in the required range. That way your modified pseudo random number generator guarantees that it generates a number in the given range uniformly at random:
public class RandomOfDigits {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int nd = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
int loIn = (int) Math.pow(10, nd-1);
int hiEx = (int) Math.pow(10, nd);
Random r = new Random();
int x;
do {
x = r.nextInt(hiEx);
} while (x < loIn);
System.out.println(x);
}
}

Here is the way I would naturally write a method like this:
private long generateRandomNumber(int n){
double tenToN = Math.pow(10, n),
tenToNMinus1 = Math.pow(10, n-1);
long randNum = (long) (Math.random() * (tenToN - tenToNMinus1) + tenToNMinus1);
return randNum;
}

Checking whether a number is in Fibonacci Sequence?

It was asked to find a way to check whether a number is in the Fibonacci Sequence or not.
The constraints are
1≤T≤10^5
1≤N≤10^10
where the T is the number of test cases,
and N is the given number, the Fibonacci candidate to be tested.
I wrote it the following using the fact a number is Fibonacci if and only if one or both of (5*n2 + 4) or (5*n2 – 4) is a perfect square :-
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class Solution {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
int n = sc.nextInt();
for(int i = 0 ; i < n; i++){
int cand = sc.nextInt();
if(cand < 0){System.out.println("IsNotFibo"); return; }
int aTest =(5 * (cand *cand)) + 4;
int bTest = (5 * (cand *cand)) - 4;
int sqrt1 = (int)Math.sqrt(aTest);// Taking square root of aTest, taking into account only the integer part.
int sqrt2 = (int)Math.sqrt(bTest);// Taking square root of bTest, taking into account only the integer part.
if((sqrt1 * sqrt1 == aTest)||(sqrt2 * sqrt2 == bTest)){
System.out.println("IsFibo");
}else{
System.out.println("IsNotFibo");
}
}
}
}
But its not clearing all the test cases? What bug fixes I can do ?

A much simpler solution is based on the fact that there are only 49 Fibonacci numbers below 10^10.
Precompute them and store them in an array or hash table for existency checks.
The runtime complexity will be O(log N + T):
Set<Long> nums = new HashSet<>();
long a = 1, b = 2;
while (a <= 10000000000L) {
nums.add(a);
long c = a + b;
a = b;
b = c;
}
// then for each query, use nums.contains() to check for Fibonacci-ness
If you want to go down the perfect square route, you might want to use arbitrary-precision arithmetics:
// find ceil(sqrt(n)) in O(log n) steps
BigInteger ceilSqrt(BigInteger n) {
// use binary search to find smallest x with x^2 >= n
BigInteger lo = BigInteger.valueOf(1),
hi = BigInteger.valueOf(n);
while (lo.compareTo(hi) < 0) {
BigInteger mid = lo.add(hi).divide(2);
if (mid.multiply(mid).compareTo(x) >= 0)
hi = mid;
else
lo = mid.add(BigInteger.ONE);
}
return lo;
}
// checks if n is a perfect square
boolean isPerfectSquare(BigInteger n) {
BigInteger x = ceilSqrt(n);
return x.multiply(x).equals(n);
}

Your tests for perfect squares involve floating point calculations. That is liable to give you incorrect answers because floating point calculations typically give you inaccurate results. (Floating point is at best an approximate to Real numbers.)
In this case sqrt(n*n) might give you n - epsilon for some small epsilon and (int) sqrt(n*n) would then be n - 1 instead of the expected n.
Restructure your code so that the tests are performed using integer arithmetic. But note that N < 1010 means that N2 < 1020. That is bigger than a long ... so you will need to use ...
UPDATE
There is more to it than this. First, Math.sqrt(double) is guaranteed to give you a double result that is rounded to the closest double value to the true square root. So you might think we are in the clear (as it were).
But the problem is that N multiplied by N has up to 20 significant digits ... which is more than can be represented when you widen the number to a double in order to make the sqrt call. (A double has 15.95 decimal digits of precision, according to Wikipedia.)
On top of that, the code as written does this:
int cand = sc.nextInt();
int aTest = (5 * (cand * cand)) + 4;
For large values of cand, that is liable to overflow. And it will even overflow if you use long instead of int ... given that the cand values may be up to 10^10. (A long can represent numbers up to +9,223,372,036,854,775,807 ... which is less than 1020.) And then we have to multiply N2 by 5.
In summary, while the code should work for small candidates, for really large ones it could either break when you attempt to read the candidate (as an int) or it could give the wrong answer due to integer overflow (as a long).
Fixing this requires a significant rethink. (Or deeper analysis than I have done to show that the computational hazards don't result in an incorrect answer for any large N in the range of possible inputs.)

According to this link a number is Fibonacci if and only if one or both of (5*n2 + 4) or (5*n2 – 4) is a perfect square so you can basically do this check.
Hope this helps :)

Use binary search and the Fibonacci Q-matrix for a O((log n)^2) solution per test case if you use exponentiation by squaring.
Your solution does not work because it involves rounding floating point square roots of large numbers (potentially large enough not to even fit in a long), which sometimes will not be exact.
The binary search will work like this: find Q^m: if the m-th Fibonacci number is larger than yours, set right = m, if it is equal return true, else set left = m + 1.

As it was correctly said, sqrt could be rounded down. So:
Even if you use long instead of int, it has 18 digits.
even if you use Math.round(), not simply (int) or (long). Notice, your function wouldn't work correctly even on small numbers because of that.
double have 14 digits, long has 18, so you can't work with squares, you need 20 digits.
BigInteger and BigDecimal have no sqrt() function.
So, you have three ways:
write your own sqrt for BigInteger.
check all numbers around the found unprecise double sqrt() for being a real sqrt. That means also working with numbers and their errors simultaneously. (it's horror!)
count all Fibonacci numbers under 10^10 and compare against them.
The last variant is by far the simplest one.

Looks like to me the for-loop doesn't make any sense ?
When you remove the for-loop for me the program works as advertised:
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class Solution {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
int cand = sc.nextInt();
if(cand < 0){System.out.println("IsNotFibo"); return; }
int aTest = 5 * cand *cand + 4;
int bTest = 5 * cand *cand - 4;
int sqrt1 = (int)Math.sqrt(aTest);
int sqrt2 = (int)Math.sqrt(bTest);
if((sqrt1 * sqrt1 == aTest)||(sqrt2 * sqrt2 == bTest)){
System.out.println("IsFibo");
}else{
System.out.println("IsNotFibo");
}
}
}

You only need to test for a given candidate, yes? What is the for loop accomplishing? Could the results of the loop be throwing your testing program off?
Also, there is a missing } in the code. It will not run as posted without adding another } at the end, after which it runs fine for the following input:
10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
IsFibo
IsFibo
IsFibo
IsNotFibo
IsFibo
IsNotFibo
IsNotFibo
IsFibo
IsNotFibo
IsNotFibo

Taking into account all the above suggestions I wrote the following which passed all test cases
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class Solution {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
long[] fib = new long[52];
Set<Long> fibSet = new HashSet<>(52);
fib[0] = 0L;
fib[1] = 1L;
for(int i = 2; i < 52; i++){
fib[i] = fib[i-1] + fib[i - 2];
fibSet.add(fib[i]);
}
int n = sc.nextInt();
long cand;
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++){
cand = sc.nextLong();
if(cand < 0){System.out.println("IsNotFibo");continue;}
if(fibSet.contains(cand)){
System.out.println("IsFibo");
}else{
System.out.println("IsNotFibo");
}
}
}
}
I wanted to be on the safer side hence I choose 52 as the number of elements in the Fibonacci sequence under consideration.

BigInteger: count the number of decimal digits in a scalable method

I need the count the number of decimal digits of a BigInteger. For example:
99 returns 2
1234 returns 4
9999 returns 4
12345678901234567890 returns 20
I need to do this for a BigInteger with 184948 decimal digits and more. How can I do this fast and scalable?
The convert-to-String approach is slow:
public String getWritableNumber(BigInteger number) {
// Takes over 30 seconds for 184948 decimal digits
return "10^" + (number.toString().length() - 1);
}
This loop-devide-by-ten approach is even slower:
public String getWritableNumber(BigInteger number) {
int digitSize = 0;
while (!number.equals(BigInteger.ZERO)) {
number = number.divide(BigInteger.TEN);
digitSize++;
}
return "10^" + (digitSize - 1);
}
Are there any faster methods?

Here's a fast method based on Dariusz's answer:
public static int getDigitCount(BigInteger number) {
double factor = Math.log(2) / Math.log(10);
int digitCount = (int) (factor * number.bitLength() + 1);
if (BigInteger.TEN.pow(digitCount - 1).compareTo(number) > 0) {
return digitCount - 1;
}
return digitCount;
}
The following code tests the numbers 1, 9, 10, 99, 100, 999, 1000, etc. all the way to ten-thousand digits:
public static void test() {
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {
BigInteger n = BigInteger.TEN.pow(i);
if (getDigitCount(n.subtract(BigInteger.ONE)) != i || getDigitCount(n) != i + 1) {
System.out.println("Failure: " + i);
}
}
System.out.println("Done");
}
This can check a BigInteger with 184,948 decimal digits and more in well under a second.

This looks like it is working. I haven't run exhaustive tests yet, n'or have I run any time tests but it seems to have a reasonable run time.
public class Test {
/**
* Optimised for huge numbers.
*
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm#Change_of_base
*
* States that log[b](x) = log[k](x)/log[k](b)
*
* We can get log[2](x) as the bitCount of the number so what we need is
* essentially bitCount/log[2](10). Sadly that will lead to inaccuracies so
* here I will attempt an iterative process that should achieve accuracy.
*
* log[2](10) = 3.32192809488736234787 so if I divide by 10^(bitCount/4) we
* should not go too far. In fact repeating that process while adding (bitCount/4)
* to the running count of the digits will end up with an accurate figure
* given some twiddling at the end.
*
* So here's the scheme:
*
* While there are more than 4 bits in the number
* Divide by 10^(bits/4)
* Increase digit count by (bits/4)
*
* Fiddle around to accommodate the remaining digit - if there is one.
*
* Essentially - each time around the loop we remove a number of decimal
* digits (by dividing by 10^n) keeping a count of how many we've removed.
*
* The number of digits we remove is estimated from the number of bits in the
* number (i.e. log[2](x) / 4). The perfect figure for the reduction would be
* log[2](x) / 3.3219... so dividing by 4 is a good under-estimate. We
* don't go too far but it does mean we have to repeat it just a few times.
*/
private int log10(BigInteger huge) {
int digits = 0;
int bits = huge.bitLength();
// Serious reductions.
while (bits > 4) {
// 4 > log[2](10) so we should not reduce it too far.
int reduce = bits / 4;
// Divide by 10^reduce
huge = huge.divide(BigInteger.TEN.pow(reduce));
// Removed that many decimal digits.
digits += reduce;
// Recalculate bitLength
bits = huge.bitLength();
}
// Now 4 bits or less - add 1 if necessary.
if ( huge.intValue() > 9 ) {
digits += 1;
}
return digits;
}
// Random tests.
Random rnd = new Random();
// Limit the bit length.
int maxBits = BigInteger.TEN.pow(200000).bitLength();
public void test() {
// 100 tests.
for (int i = 1; i <= 100; i++) {
BigInteger huge = new BigInteger((int)(Math.random() * maxBits), rnd);
// Note start time.
long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
// Do my method.
int myLength = log10(huge);
// Record my result.
System.out.println("Digits: " + myLength+ " Took: " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - start));
// Check the result.
int trueLength = huge.toString().length() - 1;
if (trueLength != myLength) {
System.out.println("WRONG!! " + (myLength - trueLength));
}
}
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
new Test().test();
}
}
Took about 3 seconds on my Celeron M laptop so it should hit sub 2 seconds on some decent kit.

I think that you could use bitLength() to get a log2 value, then change the base to 10.
The result may be wrong, however, by one digit, so this is just an approximation.
However, if that's acceptable, you could always add 1 to the result and bound it to be at most. Or, subtract 1, and get at least.

You can first convert the BigInteger to a BigDecimal and then use this answer to compute the number of digits. This seems more efficient than using BigInteger.toString() as that would allocate memory for String representation.
private static int numberOfDigits(BigInteger value) {
return significantDigits(new BigDecimal(value));
}
private static int significantDigits(BigDecimal value) {
return value.scale() < 0
? value.precision() - value.scale()
: value.precision();
}

This is an another way to do it faster than Convert-to-String method. Not the best run time, but still reasonable 0.65 seconds versus 2.46 seconds with Convert-to-String method (at 180000 digits).
This method computes the integer part of the base-10 logarithm from the given value. However, instead of using loop-divide, it uses a technique similar to Exponentiation by Squaring.
Here is a crude implementation that achieves the runtime mentioned earlier:
public static BigInteger log(BigInteger base,BigInteger num)
{
/* The technique tries to get the products among the squares of base
* close to the actual value as much as possible without exceeding it.
* */
BigInteger resultSet = BigInteger.ZERO;
BigInteger actMult = BigInteger.ONE;
BigInteger lastMult = BigInteger.ONE;
BigInteger actor = base;
BigInteger incrementor = BigInteger.ONE;
while(actMult.multiply(base).compareTo(num)<1)
{
int count = 0;
while(actMult.multiply(actor).compareTo(num)<1)
{
lastMult = actor; //Keep the old squares
actor = actor.multiply(actor); //Square the base repeatedly until the value exceeds
if(count>0) incrementor = incrementor.multiply(BigInteger.valueOf(2));
//Update the current exponent of the base
count++;
}
if(count == 0) break;
/* If there is no way to multiply the "actMult"
* with squares of the base (including the base itself)
* without keeping it below the actual value,
* it is the end of the computation
*/
actMult = actMult.multiply(lastMult);
resultSet = resultSet.add(incrementor);
/* Update the product and the exponent
* */
actor = base;
incrementor = BigInteger.ONE;
//Reset the values for another iteration
}
return resultSet;
}
public static int digits(BigInteger num)
{
if(num.equals(BigInteger.ZERO)) return 1;
if(num.compareTo(BigInteger.ZERO)<0) num = num.multiply(BigInteger.valueOf(-1));
return log(BigInteger.valueOf(10),num).intValue()+1;
}
Hope this will helps.

How to generate a random BigInteger value in Java?

I need to generate arbitrarily large random integers in the range 0 (inclusive) to n (exclusive). My initial thought was to call nextDouble and multiply by n, but once n gets to be larger than 253, the results would no longer be uniformly distributed.
BigInteger has the following constructor available:
public BigInteger(int numBits, Random rnd)
Constructs a randomly generated BigInteger, uniformly distributed over the range 0 to (2numBits - 1), inclusive.
How can this be used to get a random value in the range 0 - n, where n is not a power of 2?

Use a loop:
BigInteger randomNumber;
do {
randomNumber = new BigInteger(upperLimit.bitLength(), randomSource);
} while (randomNumber.compareTo(upperLimit) >= 0);
on average, this will require less than two iterations, and the selection will be uniform.
Edit: If your RNG is expensive, you can limit the number of iterations the following way:
int nlen = upperLimit.bitLength();
BigInteger nm1 = upperLimit.subtract(BigInteger.ONE);
BigInteger randomNumber, temp;
do {
temp = new BigInteger(nlen + 100, randomSource);
randomNumber = temp.mod(upperLimit);
} while (s.subtract(randomNumber).add(nm1).bitLength() >= nlen + 100);
// result is in 'randomNumber'
With this version, it is highly improbable that the loop is taken more than once (less than one chance in 2^100, i.e. much less than the probability that the host machine spontaneously catches fire in the next following second). On the other hand, the mod() operation is computationally expensive, so this version is probably slower than the previous, unless the randomSource instance is exceptionally slow.

The following method uses the BigInteger(int numBits, Random rnd) constructor and rejects the result if it's bigger than the specified n.
public BigInteger nextRandomBigInteger(BigInteger n) {
Random rand = new Random();
BigInteger result = new BigInteger(n.bitLength(), rand);
while( result.compareTo(n) >= 0 ) {
result = new BigInteger(n.bitLength(), rand);
}
return result;
}
The drawback to this is that the constructor is called an unspecified number of times, but in the worst case (n is just slightly greater than a power of 2) the expected number of calls to the constructor should be only about 2 times.

The simplest approach (by quite a long way) would be to use the specified constructor to generate a random number with the right number of bits (floor(log2 n) + 1), and then throw it away if it's greater than n. In the worst possible case (e.g. a number in the range [0, 2n + 1) you'll throw away just under half the values you create, on average.

Why not constructing a random BigInteger, then building a BigDecimal from it ?
There is a constructor in BigDecimal : public BigDecimal(BigInteger unscaledVal, int scale) that seems relevant here, no ? Give it a random BigInteger and a random scale int, and you'll have a random BigDecimal. No ?

Here is how I do it in a class called Generic_BigInteger available via:
Andy Turner's Generic Source Code Web Page
/**
* There are methods to get large random numbers. Indeed, there is a
* constructor for BigDecimal that allows for this, but only for uniform
* distributions over a binary power range.
* #param a_Random
* #param upperLimit
* #return a random integer as a BigInteger between 0 and upperLimit
* inclusive
*/
public static BigInteger getRandom(
Generic_Number a_Generic_Number,
BigInteger upperLimit) {
// Special cases
if (upperLimit.compareTo(BigInteger.ZERO) == 0) {
return BigInteger.ZERO;
}
String upperLimit_String = upperLimit.toString();
int upperLimitStringLength = upperLimit_String.length();
Random[] random = a_Generic_Number.get_RandomArrayMinLength(
upperLimitStringLength);
if (upperLimit.compareTo(BigInteger.ONE) == 0) {
if (random[0].nextBoolean()) {
return BigInteger.ONE;
} else {
return BigInteger.ZERO;
}
}
int startIndex = 0;
int endIndex = 1;
String result_String = "";
int digit;
int upperLimitDigit;
int i;
// Take care not to assign any digit that will result in a number larger
// upperLimit
for (i = 0; i < upperLimitStringLength; i ++){
upperLimitDigit = new Integer(
upperLimit_String.substring(startIndex,endIndex));
startIndex ++;
endIndex ++;
digit = random[i].nextInt(upperLimitDigit + 1);
if (digit != upperLimitDigit){
break;
}
result_String += digit;
}
// Once something smaller than upperLimit guaranteed, assign any digit
// between zero and nine inclusive
for (i = i + 1; i < upperLimitStringLength; i ++) {
digit = random[i].nextInt(10);
result_String += digit;
}
// Tidy values starting with zero(s)
while (result_String.startsWith("0")) {
if (result_String.length() > 1) {
result_String = result_String.substring(1);
} else {
break;
}
}
BigInteger result = new BigInteger(result_String);
return result;
}

For those who are still asking this question and are looking for a way to generate arbitrarily large random BigIntegers within a positive integer range, this is what I came up with. This random generator works without trying bunch of numbers until one fits the range. Instead it will generate a random number directly that will fit the given range.
private static BigInteger RandomBigInteger(BigInteger rangeStart, BigInteger rangeEnd){
Random rand = new Random();
int scale = rangeEnd.toString().length();
String generated = "";
for(int i = 0; i < rangeEnd.toString().length(); i++){
generated += rand.nextInt(10);
}
BigDecimal inputRangeStart = new BigDecimal("0").setScale(scale, RoundingMode.FLOOR);
BigDecimal inputRangeEnd = new BigDecimal(String.format("%0" + (rangeEnd.toString().length()) + "d", 0).replace('0', '9')).setScale(scale, RoundingMode.FLOOR);
BigDecimal outputRangeStart = new BigDecimal(rangeStart).setScale(scale, RoundingMode.FLOOR);
BigDecimal outputRangeEnd = new BigDecimal(rangeEnd).add(new BigDecimal("1")).setScale(scale, RoundingMode.FLOOR); //Adds one to the output range to correct rounding
//Calculates: (generated - inputRangeStart) / (inputRangeEnd - inputRangeStart) * (outputRangeEnd - outputRangeStart) + outputRangeStart
BigDecimal bd1 = new BigDecimal(new BigInteger(generated)).setScale(scale, RoundingMode.FLOOR).subtract(inputRangeStart);
BigDecimal bd2 = inputRangeEnd.subtract(inputRangeStart);
BigDecimal bd3 = bd1.divide(bd2, RoundingMode.FLOOR);
BigDecimal bd4 = outputRangeEnd.subtract(outputRangeStart);
BigDecimal bd5 = bd3.multiply(bd4);
BigDecimal bd6 = bd5.add(outputRangeStart);
BigInteger returnInteger = bd6.setScale(0, RoundingMode.FLOOR).toBigInteger();
returnInteger = (returnInteger.compareTo(rangeEnd) > 0 ? rangeEnd : returnInteger); //Converts number to the end of output range if it's over it. This is to correct rounding.
return returnInteger;
}
How does it work?
First it generates a String with random numbers with the same length as the maximum range. For example: with given range of 10-1000 it will generate some number between 0000 and 9999 as a String.
Then it creates BigDecimals to represent the maximum possible value (9999 in previous example) and minimum value (0) and converts the range parameter BigIntegers to BigDecimals. Also in this step to the given range maximum value is added 1 in order to correct rounding errors in the next step.
Then using this formula the generated random number is mapped to the given range:
(generated - inputRangeStart) / (inputRangeEnd - inputRangeStart) * (outputRangeEnd - outputRangeStart) + outputRangeStart
After that it will do a last check whether or not the mapped number fits the given range and sets it to the given range maximum if it doesn't. This is done in order to correct rounding errors.

Just use modular reduction
new BigInteger(n.bitLength(), new SecureRandom()).mod(n)

Compile this F# code into a DLL and you can also reference it in your C# / VB.NET programs
type BigIntegerRandom() =
static let internalRandom = new Random()
/// Returns a BigInteger random number of the specified number of bytes.
static member RandomBigInteger(numBytes:int, rand:Random) =
let r = if rand=null then internalRandom else rand
let bytes : byte[] = Array.zeroCreate (numBytes+1)
r.NextBytes(bytes)
bytes.[numBytes] <- 0uy
bigint bytes
/// Returns a BigInteger random number from 0 (inclusive) to max (exclusive).
static member RandomBigInteger(max:bigint, rand:Random) =
let rec getNumBytesInRange num bytes = if max < num then bytes else getNumBytesInRange (num * 256I) bytes+1
let bytesNeeded = getNumBytesInRange 256I 1
BigIntegerRandom.RandomBigInteger(bytesNeeded, rand) % max
/// Returns a BigInteger random number from min (inclusive) to max (exclusive).
static member RandomBigInteger(min:bigint, max:bigint, rand:Random) =
BigIntegerRandom.RandomBigInteger(max - min, rand) + min