SHUF(1)

📦
version 9.12 · 23 versions
, in arch rolling

✨ NAME ✨

shuf — bestie, this generates random permutations 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

shuf [OPTION]... [FILE]
shuf -e [OPTION]... [ARG]...
shuf -i LO-HI [OPTION]...

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so here's the tea: shuf writes a random permutation of the input lines to standard output. That's it. That's the whole vibe. It shuffles your lines and gives them back to you in a different order. Iconic behavior, no notes. 🎀

If there's no FILE, or if FILE is -, it reads from standard input. So you can pipe stuff in like it's nothing.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. (iykyk — this is the standard GNU rule, fr fr.)

  • -e, --echo — treat each ARG as an input line 🫶
  • -i, --input-range=LO-HI — treat each number LO through HI as an input line 🔢
  • -n, --head-count=COUNT — output at most COUNT lines, like a little snack portion ✨
  • -o, --output=FILE — write the result to FILE instead of standard output 📝
  • --random-source=FILE — get random bytes from FILE 🎲
  • -r, --repeat — output lines can be repeated, so yes you might see the same line twice, that's on purpose 💀
  • -z, --zero-terminated — line delimiter is NUL, not newline ⭐
  • --help — display this help and exit 👑
  • --version — output version information and exit 🌈

💖 AUTHOR 💖

Written by Paul Eggert. We stan. 🫶

🙈 REPORTING BUGS 🙈

Found something cursed? Tell the devs, bestie:

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. 😭 Not even a little one. None. Zero. Nada.

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

Okay that's the whole page, bestie — go forth and shuffle. This was GNU coreutils 9.12, dated September 2026. Mwah. 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from