1.\" Copyright (c) 1994 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgment: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)random.6 8.2 (Berkeley) 3/31/94 33.\" $FreeBSD: src/games/random/random.6,v 1.8 2005/01/18 08:57:18 ru Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/games/random/random.6,v 1.3 2005/03/02 06:59:23 cpressey Exp $ 35.\" 36.Dd February 8, 2003 37.Dt RANDOM 6 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm random 41.Nd random lines from a file or random numbers 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm 44.Op Fl elrUuw 45.Op Fl f Ar filename 46.Op Ar denominator 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48.Nm Random 49has two distinct modes of operations. 50The default is to read in lines 51from the standard input and randomly write them out 52to the standard output with a probability of 531 / 54.Ar denominator . 55The default 56.Ar denominator 57for this mode of operation is 2, giving each line a 50/50 chance of 58being displayed. 59.Pp 60The second mode of operation is to read in a file from 61.Ar filename 62and randomize the contents of the file and send it back out to 63standard output. 64The contents can be randomized based off of newlines or based off of 65space characters as determined by 66.Xr isspace 3 . 67The default 68.Ar denominator 69for this mode of operation is 1, which gives each line a chance to be 70displayed, but in a 71.Xr random 3 72order. 73.Pp 74The options are as follows: 75.Bl -tag -width Ds 76.It Fl e 77If the 78.Fl e 79option is specified, 80.Nm 81does not read or write anything, and simply exits with a random 82exit value of 0 to 83.Ar denominator 84\&- 1, inclusive. 85.It Fl f Ar filename 86The 87.Fl f 88option is used to specify the 89.Ar filename 90to read from. 91Standard input is used if 92.Ar filename 93is set to 94.Sq Fl . 95.It Fl l 96Randomize the input via newlines (the default). 97.It Fl r 98The 99.Fl r 100option guarantees that the output is unbuffered. 101.It Fl U 102Tells 103.Xr random 6 104that it is okay for it to reuse any given line or word when creating a 105randomized output. 106.It Fl u 107Tells 108.Xr random 6 109not to select the same line or word from a file more than once (the 110default). 111This does not guarantee uniqueness if there are two of the 112same tokens from the input, but it does prevent selecting the same 113token more than once. 114.It Fl w 115Randomize words separated by 116.Xr isspace 3 117instead of newlines. 118.El 119.Sh SEE ALSO 120.Xr random 3 , 121.Xr fortune 6 122.Sh HISTORY 123The 124functionality to randomizing lines and words was added in 2003 by 125.An "Sean Chittenden" Aq seanc@FreeBSD.org . 126.Sh BUGS 127No index is used when printing out tokens from the list which 128makes it rather slow for large files (10MB+). 129For smaller 130files, however, it should still be quite fast and efficient. 131