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28 .\" @(#)random.6 8.2 (Berkeley) 3/31/94
36 .Nd random lines from a file or random numbers
44 has two distinct modes of operations.
45 The default is to read lines from standard input and write them to standard
46 output with a probability of 1.0 /
49 is a real number greater than or equal to 1.0.)
52 for this mode of operation is 2.0, giving each line a 50% chance of
55 The second mode of operation, selected with the
57 option, reads the specified file and outputs the randomized contents to
59 The contents can be randomized in units of lines (split on newline characters)
60 or in units of words (split on space characters as determined by
64 for this mode of operation is 1.0, which displays every line.
66 The options are as follows:
73 does not read or write anything, and simply exits with a random
79 must be less than or equal to 256.
83 option is used to specify the
86 Standard input is used if
91 Randomize the input via newlines (the default).
95 Reuse any given line or word when creating a randomized output.
97 Do not select the same line or word from a file more than once (the default).
98 This does not guarantee uniqueness if there are two of the
99 same tokens in the input.
101 Randomize words separated by
109 functionality to randomizing lines and words was added in 2003 by
110 .An Sean Chittenden Aq Mt seanc@FreeBSD.org .
112 This tool is a remnant of the "games" collection formerly part of
115 It probably should have been removed to ports with the rest of that collection.
116 It does not have a coherent purpose and the motivation for it to be a core base
117 utility is nonobvious.
119 No index is used when printing out tokens from the list which
120 makes it rather slow for large files (10MB+).