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 1.3.2.3 2003/02/15 10:34:35 seanc Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/games/random/random.6,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:25:24 dillon 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 er 45.Op Fl f Ar filename 46.Op Ar denominator 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48.Nm Random 49has two distinct modes of operations. The default is to read in lines 50from stdin and randomly write them out to stdout with a probability of 511 / 52.Ar denominator . 53The default 54.Ar denominator 55for this mode of operation is 2, giving each line a 50/50 chance of 56being displayed. 57.Pp 58The second mode of operation is to read in a file from 59.Ar filename 60and randomize the contents of the file and send it back out to stdout. 61The contents can be randomized based off of newlines or based off of 62space characters as determined by 63.Xr isspace 3 . 64The default 65.Ar denominator 66for this mode of operation is 1, which gives each line a chance to be 67displayed, but in a 68.Xr random 3 69order. 70.Pp 71The options are as follows: 72.Bl -tag -width Ds 73.It Fl e 74If the 75.Fl e 76option is specified, 77.Nm 78does not read or write anything, and simply exits with a random 79exit value of 0 to 80.Ar denominator 81\&- 1, inclusive. 82.It Fl f Ar filename 83The 84.Fl f 85option is used to specify the 86.Ar filename 87to read from. stdin is used if the filename is set to "-". 88.It Fl l 89Randomize the input via newlines (the default). 90.It Fl r 91The 92.Fl r 93option guarantees that the output is unbuffered. 94.It Fl u 95Tells 96.Xr random 6 97not to select the same line or word from a file more than once (the 98default). This does not guarantee uniqueness if there are two of the 99same tokens from the input, but it does prevent selecting the same 100token more than once. 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 w 107Randomize words separated by 108.Xr isspace 3 109instead of newlines. 110.El 111.Sh SEE ALSO 112.Xr fortune 6 , 113.Xr random 3 114.Sh BUGS 115There is no index used when printing out tokens from the list which 116makes rather slow for large files (10MB+). If this were used in 117performance sensitive areas, I'd do something about it. For smaller 118files, however, it should still be quite fast and efficient. 119.Sh HISTORY 120Original 121.Xr random 6 122game was brought in from BSD 4.4 Lite by jkh in 1994. The 123functionality to randomizing lines and words was added in 2003 by 124seanc. 125