DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

SHUFFLE(1)             DragonFly General Commands Manual            SHUFFLE(1)

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

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

DESCRIPTION
     The shuffle program prints a random permutation (or "shuffle") of its
     input lines. 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.

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)

HISTORY
     The shuffle program first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.

AUTHORS
     Written by Perry E. Metzger (perry@piermont.com).

BUGS
     The random number generator isn't that great, and thus the permutations
     often aren't that great.

DragonFly 6.5-DEVELOPMENT     September 22, 1998     DragonFly 6.5-DEVELOPMENT