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. 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. 15.\" 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 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)random.6 8.2 (Berkeley) 3/31/94 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd February 15, 2020 32.Dt RANDOM 6 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm random 36.Nd random lines from a file or random numbers 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Fl elrUuw 40.Op Fl f Ar filename 41.Op Ar denominator 42.Sh DESCRIPTION 43.Nm Random 44has two distinct modes of operations. 45The default is to read lines from standard input and write them to standard 46output with a probability of 1.0 / 47.Ar denominator . 48.Ar ( denominator 49is a real number greater than or equal to 1.0.) 50The default 51.Ar denominator 52for this mode of operation is 2.0, giving each line a 50% chance of 53being displayed. 54.Pp 55The second mode of operation, selected with the 56.Fl f Ar filename 57option, reads the specified file and outputs the randomized contents to 58standard output. 59The contents can be randomized in units of lines (split on newline characters) 60or in units of words (split on space characters as determined by 61.Xr isspace 3 . ) 62The default 63.Ar denominator 64for this mode of operation is 1.0, which displays every line. 65.Pp 66The options are as follows: 67.Bl -tag -width Ds 68.It Fl e 69If the 70.Fl e 71option is specified, 72.Nm 73does not read or write anything, and simply exits with a random 74exit value of 0 to 75.Ar denominator 76\&- 1, inclusive. 77In this mode, 78.Ar denominator 79must be less than or equal to 256. 80.It Fl f Ar filename 81The 82.Fl f 83option is used to specify the 84.Ar filename 85to read from. 86Standard input is used if 87.Ar filename 88is 89.Sq - . 90.It Fl l 91Randomize the input via newlines (the default). 92.It Fl r 93Do not buffer output. 94.It Fl U 95Reuse any given line or word when creating a randomized output. 96.It Fl u 97Do not select the same line or word from a file more than once (the default). 98This does not guarantee uniqueness if there are two of the 99same tokens in the input. 100.It Fl w 101Randomize words separated by 102.Xr isspace 3 103instead of newlines. 104.El 105.Sh SEE ALSO 106.Xr fortune 6 107.Sh HISTORY 108The 109functionality to randomizing lines and words was added in 2003 by 110.An Sean Chittenden Aq Mt seanc@FreeBSD.org . 111.Sh BUGS 112This tool is a remnant of the "games" collection formerly part of 113.Fx 114base. 115It probably should have been removed to ports with the rest of that collection. 116It does not have a coherent purpose and the motivation for it to be a core base 117utility is nonobvious. 118.Pp 119No index is used when printing out tokens from the list which 120makes it rather slow for large files (10MB+). 121