NAME

rand — randomize the order of a stream

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

rand has 2 major modes of operation. The first is as a pipe. The second is to act on a specified file. There are 2 minor modes of operation, the data can be randomized by line or word.

As a pipe, rand collects the stream until it terminates, then displays the randomized results of this completed stream. If the stream is the result of several operations, then the stream as a whole is randomized.

When operating on a file, rand will read the input from a single given file, and display the results to stdout.

The two command line parameters control if the randomization is per line or word. The default behavior is to randomize by line. rand will randomize by word, and return one word on every line. A word in this sense is any string delimited by a whitespace. Tabs, spaces, and newlines are ignored.

OPTIONS

[-l]

Line shuffle

[-w]

Word shuffle

[-c]

Character shuffle

[-v, --version]

Show version and exit.

[-h, --help]

Show help and exit.

[-f <file>]

Read from <file> instead of stdin.

[-<file>]

Write to <file> instead of stdout.

EXAMPLES

play `find -name *.wav | rand `
rand -w -f COPYING -o whatever
rand -l -f history.test -o test.1
/bin/ls | rand -w

DIAGNOSTICS

rand returns EXIT_SUCCESS on success or EXIT_FAILURE on failure. The only cases where EXIT_FAILURE may be returned are

• -f file can not be read.
• -o file cannot be written to.
• An unknown option is presented (in which case, usage is also printed)

SEE ALSO

sort(1), rand(3)

HISTORY

rand was created in October of 1998 when Erik Greenwald got tired of hacking things to shuffle stuff.

BUGS

rand has no known bugs. Please report any to <erik@brlcad.org>

AUTHOR

Erik Greenwald <erik@brlcad.org> <erik@brlcad.org>