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Full Discussion: Random
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Random Post 302118791 by aigles on Thursday 24th of May 2007 08:29:26 AM
Old 05-24-2007
You can store all the words in a file (assume words.txt).
Code:
stored_word()
{
   if [ -z "$stored_words_count" ]
   then
      stored_words_count=$(wc -l < words.txt)
   fi
   number=$RANDOM
   let "number = number % stored_words_count + 1"
   tail +$number words.txt | head -1
}

Another solution is to read the file into an array.
Code:
init_stored_words()
{
   while read w
   do
      words[${#words[@]}]=$w
   done < words.txt
   stored_words_count=${#words[@]}
}
stored_word()
{
   [ -z "$stored_words_count" ] && init_stored_words
   number=$RANDOM
   let "number %= stored_words_count"
   echo  ${words[$number]}
}

Jean-Pierre.
Last edited by aigles; 05-24-2007 at 01:31 PM.. Reason: Modify number calculation for tail/head solution.
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

irish

WORDS(5)						     Linux Programmers Manual							  WORDS(5)

NAME

       irish - a list of Irish words

DESCRIPTION

       /usr/share/dict/irish is an ASCII file which contains an alphabetic list of words, one per line.

FILES

       /etc/dictionaries-common/words  is  a  symbolic	link  to  a  /usr/share/dict/<language> file.  /usr/share/dict/words is a symbolic link to
       /etc/dictionaries-common/words, and is the name by which other software	should	refer  to  the	system	word  list.   See  select-default-
       wordlist(8) for more information.

       The directory /usr/share/dict can contain word lists for many languages, with name of the language in English, e.g., /usr/share/dict/french
       and /usr/share/dict/danish contain respectively lists of French and Danish words if they exist.	Such lists should be coded using  the  ISO
       8859-1 character set encoding.

SEE ALSO

       ispell(1), select-default-wordlist(8), and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

HISTORY

       The words lists are not specific, and may be generated from any number of sources.

       The  system word list used to be /usr/dict/words.  For compatibility, software should check that location if /usr/share/dict/words does not
       exist.

AUTHOR

       Alastair McKibstry <mckinstry@computer.org> Kevin Scannell

Linux								   29 Sept 1998 							  WORDS(5)
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