PointCloudLibrary / PointCloudLibrary/pcl

[PCL] Use C++11 random generators, not `rand`

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#3,781 7 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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effort: medium good first issue kind: todo
Dominant language
C++
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Avg merge
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Description

Context

rand has several issues, which C++11 random generators don't. New PR often see the rand usage and try to emulate the wrong behavior.

Expected behavior

Remove all rand so when people search for how PCL did its random num generation, they get good quality results

Additional context

Usage of old-fashioned rand discovered by codacity (or maybe try grep)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Search the PCL repository for all uses of rand, then inspect each call site and its surrounding random-number logic. Replace the old generator usage with C++11 random generators while preserving the intended behavior. Done means no remaining rand usage and the affected project checks continue to pass.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
computer-vision
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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