Hello,
I recently had to write a shuffle utility for a personal project and was
wondering if it would make a canidate for the coreutils suite. It seems like
the kind of utility the toolbox could use (maybe under section 3. Output of
entire files).
It's a fairly simple program, and while there is room for optimization, works
fairly quickly enough on my hardware.
It is probably best explained by the quick man page I whipped up:
---------------------------
shuffle(1) USER COMMANDS shuffle(1)
NAME
shuffle - Randomize stdin/file contents
SYNOPSIS
shuffle [--help] [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
Randomize the contents of all files specified on the command line. If
no files are specified, shuffle will read from stdin, and write to std-
out.
OPTIONS
--help Display short usage information
EXAMPLES
Randomize contents of a series of files:
shuffle file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
Create a random multimedia playlist based on directory contents:
find /path/to/media -name *.ogg | shuffle > playlist.pls
Select a file at random:
ls | shuffle | head -n 1
EXIT STATUS
shuffle returns a zero upon succesful completion; a one upon failing to
read a file and a two upon failing to write a file.
AUTHOR
Written by Davis Houlton.
version 1.0 May 21, 2005 shuffle(1)
---------------------------
Please let me know if this would be considered an appropriate addition, and
what the next step might be. I have used GNU utils for decades now, and am
happy at the opportunity to finally have a chance to give back. Thanks,
Davis Houlton
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