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SHUFFLE(1)                  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
     selecting 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