Is there any difference between rand(n,1) and unifrnd(0, 1, n, 1)?

Is there any difference between

rand(n,1)

and

unifrnd(0, 1, n, 1)?

Answer 1

[Youssef Khmou]

They both generate sample from uniform distribution, unifrnd offers a possibility to enter the parameters while with rand you need to adjust them, example of uniform distribution of interval [5,10] with size of 400 :

              h1=unifrnd(5,10,1,400);
              h2=5+5*rand(1,400); % same pdf

[John D'Errico]

In fact, unifrnd will call rand and do the transformation for you. In this specific case though, there is no transformation needed.

r = mu + sig .* (2*rand(sizeOut)-1);

[Image Analyst]

I find no unifrnd in base MATLAB, yet no toolbox is listed above.

[Fred]

@Image Analyst It's in Statistics toolbox

http://www.mathworks.com/help/stats/unifrnd.html

Answer 2

[Anne van Rossum]

There is less error checking in rand, which can be at times preferred... For example, if you need to generated random numbers between a and b, and it doesn't matter if a > b.

a = 5
b = -5

Then:

a+(b-a)*rand(1,400)

But you'll need to make sure a and b are properly ordered for unifrnd:

if (b < a)
  [a, b] = deal(b, a);
end
unifrnd(a,b,1,400)

Or else your result will be a vector of NaNs.