Yes indeed. In Boost.Random (which the standard library random was based on), you can do exactly that: boost::mt19937 generator(boost::random_device()); Y

Yes indeed. In Boost.Random (which the standard library random was based on), you can do exactly that: boost::mt19937 generator(boost::random_device()); You can also pass an appropriate length container (as two iterators) which are directly used as the seed without any intermediate object.