Friday, February 10, 2017

GNU/Linux shell: A bit of random

From a number of different tasks of equal priority listed in a file (for the sake of argument listed in the lines 123 through 321) I wanted to choose the next one to perform in a random manner using ordinary shell tools. I came up with this solution:
    seq 123 312 | sort -R | head -1
This generates a sequence from 123 through 321, sorts it in a random manner and prints the first number of the randomized list.

This solution neither generates cryptographic random numbers nor saves memory or CPU time but it is straightforward and does the job at hand without any fancy tools or tricks. Perhaps you like it.