shuffle(1) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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SHUFFLE(1)              NetBSD General Commands Manual              SHUFFLE(1)


NAME
shuffle -- print a random permutation of the command line arguments
SYNOPSIS
shuffle [-0] [-f filename ...] [-n number] [-p number] [arg] [...]
DESCRIPTION
The shuffle program prints a random permutation (or ``shuffle'') of its command line arguments. This can be useful in shell scripts for select- ing 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. The -0 option changes the field separator character from \n to \0, so that the output is suitable to be sent to xargs(1) (to handle filenames with whitespace in them).
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), random(6)
HISTORY
The shuffle program first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.
AUTHORS
Written by Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>. NetBSD 10.99 February 18, 2009 NetBSD 10.99
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