[NTLUG:Discuss] Bash script question

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 01:45:37PM -0700, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 02:09:47PM -0600, Lance Simmons wrote:
> How about something like:
> 
>    for i in $(seq 1 40)
>    do
>        LINE=$(($RANDOM % 100 + 1));
>        head -$LINE infile | tail -1
>    done

I should also note, depending on the "evenness" of the numbers produced
by $RANDOM, the first 68 lines of the file are 1/327th more likely to 
be chosen than the last 32 lines of the file, if that sort of
skew is important to you.  It can be corrected, but I was just going with
a very simple solution to start.  :-)

Pm