randomlines.sh [--verbose] <FILE> <COUNT>

Prints COUNT lines from FILE randomly

Usecases

You have a list of cities you wish to travel to during your summer holidays but you don't know which ones to visit first. This program for Linux, randomlines.sh can help you to decide where to go first. It also could be used to randomly elect steemians or posts for a contest.

Format the Data

Put the list in a file. One item, one line.

towns.csv

Amsterdam
Athens
...
Stockholm
Vienna

The command

To know the 5 next cities to travel to, just type the command in a terminal:

$ ./randomlines.sh towns.csv 5

It produces the output:

Paris
Vienna
Geneva
Monaco
Athens

Verbose Option

Unfortunately, it doesn't post the result in the blockchain yet ;)

$ ./randomlines.sh --verbose towns.csv 5
towns.csv has 16 lines
Drawing 5 numbers between 1 and 16
Numbers:  12 3 6 10 16
#12 Paris
#3 Barcelona
#6 Brussels
#10 Monaco
#16 Vienna

The source code

I'm lazy, nevertheless I added comments.

#!/bin/bash

# function to print a random number between $1 and $2
randint() {
    min=$1
    max=$2
    # modulo
    let "mod=1+max-min"
    # big random hex number (16 hex numbers, uppercase)
    h=$(openssl rand -hex 16 | tr [a-z] [A-Z])
    # decimal conversion
    n=$(echo "ibase=16; $h" | bc)
    # print the random number
    echo "($n % $mod) + $min" | bc
}

# parameters
if [[ "$1" == "--verbose" ]] ; then
    verbose=0 # true
    shift
fi

file=$1
todraw=$2

# checks
if [[ "$todraw" == "" ]] ; then
    echo "Usage $0 [--verbose] <FILE> <COUNT>";
    exit 1
fi
if [ ! -e "$file" ] ; then
    echo "File $file does not exist"
    exit 1
fi

# limits
min=1
max=$(wc -l $file | cut -d\  -f1)
if [ $verbose ] ; then echo "$file has $max lines" ; fi
if [[ "$todraw" -gt "$max" ]] ; then
    echo "File $file has too few lines ($max) to draw $todraw distinct items"
    exit 1
fi

# draw distinct random numbers
if [ $verbose ] ; then echo "Drawing $todraw numbers between $min and $max" ; fi
count=0
numbers=""
while [[ "$count" != "$todraw" ]] ; do
    value=$(randint $min $max)
    found=$(echo $numbers | egrep "^$value | $value | $value$")
    
    if [[ "$found" == "" ]] ; then
        numbers="$numbers $value"
        let "count=count+1"
    fi
done
if [ $verbose ] ; then echo "Numbers: $numbers" ; fi

# print elected lines
for number in $numbers ; do
    if [ $verbose ] ; then echo -n "#$number " ; fi
    # print the corresponding line of the file
    sed -n "$number"p $file
done

exit 0

I hope you'll find it useful. Questions, suggestions and remarks are welcome.