shuffle(1) [netbsd man page]

SHUFFLE(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						SHUFFLE(1)

NAME

     shuffle -- print a random permutation of the command line arguments

SYNOPSIS

     shuffle [-0] [-f filename ...] [-n number] [-p number] [arg] [...]

DESCRIPTION

     The shuffle program prints a random permutation (or ``shuffle'') of its command line arguments.  This can be useful in shell scripts for
     selecting a random order in which to do a set of tasks, view a set of files, etc.

     If the -f option is given, the data is taken from that files' contents or if the filename is - ``stdin''.

     If the -n option is given, its argument is treated as a number, and the program prints a random permutation of the numbers greater than or
     equal to 0 and less than the argument.

     If the -p option is given, its argument is treated as a number, and the program prints that number of randomly selected lines or arguments in
     a random order.

     The -0 option changes the field separator character from 
 to , so that the output is suitable to be sent to xargs(1) (to handle filenames
     with whitespace in them).

EXAMPLES

	   $ shuffle a b c d
	   c
	   b
	   d
	   a
	   $ shuffle -p 1 a b c d
	   d
	   $ shuffle -n 4 -p 2
	   0
	   3

SEE ALSO

     jot(1), random(6)

HISTORY

     The shuffle program first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.

AUTHORS

     Written by Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>.

BSD
								 February 18, 2009							       BSD

RANDOM(6)							 BSD Games Manual							 RANDOM(6)

NAME

     random -- random lines from a file or random numbers

SYNOPSIS

     random [-elrUuw] [-f filename] [denominator]

DESCRIPTION

     Random has two distinct modes of operations.  The default is to read in lines from the standard input and randomly write them out to the
     standard output with a probability of 1 / denominator.  The default denominator for this mode of operation is 2, giving each line a 50/50
     chance of being displayed.

     The second mode of operation is to read in a file from filename and randomize the contents of the file and send it back out to standard out-
     put.  The contents can be randomized based off of newlines or based off of space characters as determined by isspace(3).  The default
     denominator for this mode of operation is 1, which gives each line a chance to be displayed, but in a random(3) order.

     The options are as follows:

     -e      If the -e option is specified, random does not read or write anything, and simply exits with a random exit value of 0 to denominator
	     - 1, inclusive.

     -f filename
	     The -f option is used to specify the filename to read from.  Standard input is used if filename is set to '-'.

     -l      Randomize the input via newlines (the default).

     -r      The -r option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.

     -U      Tells random(6) that it is okay for it to reuse any given line or word when creating a randomized output.

     -u      Tells random(6) not to select the same line or word from a file more than once (the default).  This does not guarantee uniqueness if
	     there are two of the same tokens from the input, but it does prevent selecting the same token more than once.

     -w      Randomize words separated by isspace(3) instead of newlines.

SEE ALSO

     random(3), fortune(6)

HISTORY

     The functionality to randomizing lines and words was added in 2003 by Sean Chittenden <seanc@FreeBSD.org>.

BUGS

     No index is used when printing out tokens from the list which makes it rather slow for large files (10MB+).  For smaller files, however, it
     should still be quite fast and efficient.

BSD
								 February 8, 2003							       BSD