2 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
4 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14 .\" without specific prior written permission.
16 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
28 .\" @(#)random.6 8.2 (Berkeley) 3/31/94
29 .\" $FreeBSD: src/games/random/random.6,v 1.8 2005/01/18 08:57:18 ru Exp $
30 .\" $DragonFly: src/games/random/random.6,v 1.3 2005/03/02 06:59:23 cpressey Exp $
37 .Nd random lines from a file or random numbers
45 has two distinct modes of operations.
46 The default is to read in lines
47 from the standard input and randomly write them out
48 to the standard output with a probability of
53 for this mode of operation is 2, giving each line a 50/50 chance of
56 The second mode of operation is to read in a file from
58 and randomize the contents of the file and send it back out to
60 The contents can be randomized based off of newlines or based off of
61 space characters as determined by
65 for this mode of operation is 1, which gives each line a chance to be
70 The options are as follows:
77 does not read or write anything, and simply exits with a random
84 option is used to specify the
87 Standard input is used if
92 Randomize the input via newlines (the default).
96 option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.
100 that it is okay for it to reuse any given line or word when creating a
105 not to select the same line or word from a file more than once (the
107 This does not guarantee uniqueness if there are two of the
108 same tokens from the input, but it does prevent selecting the same
109 token more than once.
111 Randomize words separated by
120 functionality to randomizing lines and words was added in 2003 by
121 .An "Sean Chittenden" Aq seanc@FreeBSD.org .
123 No index is used when printing out tokens from the list which
124 makes it rather slow for large files (10MB+).
126 files, however, it should still be quite fast and efficient.