From mikal@stillhq.com Fri Mar 29 10:26:04 2002

Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 10:14:17 +1100 (EST)

From: Michael Still 

To: Linux user group 

Subject: Nemo's bash challenge for the day





Well, I said it could be done...



The brief: Generate a random number, and then return that element from a

list of elements, in bash



The code: (Assuming that the arguements on the command line are the

possible return options, and that the random number generator is running

as a separate script)



LOBOUND=0

HIBOUND=$#

shift $(( $LOBOUND + ($HIBOUND * $RANDOM) / (32767 + 1) ))

echo $1



See the attachments for some exploratory scripts I wrote while coming up

with this truncated sh. There are 54 lines of comments / white spaces, to

the 4 or so lines of actual code.



Have a nice life...



Cheers,

Mikal



PS: How good is the bash random? See the attachment output.count for a

summary of 100,000 numbers between 1 and 10 being generated with the

default seed. It's probably good enough for most people.



PPS: If you want the code, it should also be online at

http://www.stillhq.com/cgi-bin/getpage?area=bashrand&page=index.htm in

about 30 minutes, depending when Andrew goes to sleep.



-- 



Michael Still (mikal@stillhq.com)     UMT+11hrs



    [ Part 2, ""  Application/X-SH  2.1KB. ]

    [ Unable to print this part. ]





    [ Part 3, ""  Application/X-SH  412bytes. ]

    [ Unable to print this part. ]





    [ Part 4, ""  Text/PLAIN (Name: "output.count")  2 lines. ]

    [ Unable to print this part. ]