Bash Script: Random Line
In: , ,
On: 2004 / 01 / 25 Viewed: 46435 times
Shorter URL for this post: http://ozh.in/i

This bash script extracts a random line from a given (text) file. This is a cheap "fortune" replacement.

PLAIN TEXT
CODE:
  1. #!/bin/bash
  2. # randomline : extracts a random line from a text file
  3.  
  4. if [ -z $1 ] ; then
  5. echo "Usage : $0 <file>"
  6. exit 0
  7. fi
  8.  
  9. NB_LINES=$(expr $(wc -l $1 | sed -e 's/ *//' | cut -f1 -d " "))
  10.  
  11. NB_RAND=0
  12. while [ "$NB_RAND" -eq 0 ]
  13. do
  14. NB_RAND=$(expr $RANDOM \% $NB_LINES)
  15. done
  16.  
  17. sed -n "${NB_RAND}p;${NB_RAND}q" $1

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This entry "Bash Script: Random Line" was posted on 25/01/2004 at 10:12 pm and is tagged with , ,
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3 Blablas

  1. lb
    1
    lb Germany »
    replied, on 22/Aug/08 at 1:02 pm # :

    There is still a

    PLAIN TEXT
    HTML:
    1. &lt;

    remaining in the plaintext version.

    I am an absolute sh beginner, I use your very helpful script in a small project of mine and will modify it a bit because the call of wc takes its toll.
    I search in a quite large file (5 digit number of lines) and that quite often, so I get a lot of redundancy. (~0.1 seconds for the 4 calls I do.)

    Best

    lb

  2. procdaemon
    2
    procdaemon United States »
    wrote, on 23/Mar/09 at 4:11 pm # :
    PLAIN TEXT
    CODE:
    1. NB_LINES=$(expr $(wc -l $1 | sed -e 's/ *//' | cut -f1 -d " "))

    would be better as

    PLAIN TEXT
    CODE:
    1. NB_LINES=`wc -l &lt;$1`

  3. stfn
    3
    stfn Germany »
    said, on 02/Nov/09 at 12:50 am # :

    nice, thanks.

    i use it to open a random website in firefox drawn from a text file.

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