GOLF(2gg)

👑 GOLF(2gg) — the random-string page, bestie edition 💖

okay so this is from the GOLF manual, section 2gg, living under Development. it's the random-string page, filed under (encryption). yes queen, we're getting into it. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

random-string — it's giving (encryption) energy, no cap 🎀

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🦋 PURPOSE 🦋

bestie. the whole point. we're obtaining a random string. that's it. that's the mission. 🫶

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✨ SYNTAX ✨

    random-string to <random string> \
        [ length <string length> ] \
        [ number | binary ]

look at her. clean. iconic. copy it exactly, don't freestyle. 💅

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

okay so random-string obtains a random string of length <string length>. and if you just… don't include the length clause? no worries, the length is 20 by default. lowkey generous of her. 😌

if the number clause is used, then the resulting string is composed of digits only — like, "0" through "9", nothing else. numbers only, no letters allowed at the function. 🔢

if the binary clause is used, then the resulting string is binary, i.e. each byte can have an unsigned value of 0-255. so yeah, full range, we're not playing. 💀

by default — like, if neither number nor binary is used — the resulting string is alphanumeric, i.e. digits ("0" through "9") and alphabet letters ("a"-"z" and "A"-"Z") are used only. that's the default vibe. 🌈

now the science part, and honestly? ate. the random generator is based on the Linux random() generator, seeded by local process properties such as its PID and time. a single process is seeded once, and thus any number of requests served by the same process will use a subset of the process' random sequence. and because of joint entropy, each result given to any request is random — not just within a single request, but among any number of different requests. so it's random across the board, not just one-off. periodt. 👑

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🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

get a 100-digit long random value (as an alphanumeric string):

    random-string to str length 100
    print-format "%s\n", str

get a random number of length 10 in string representation:

    random-string to str length 10 number
    print-format "%s\n", str

get a random binary value that is 8 bytes in length — heads up bestie, this value may contain null bytes (i.e. it will contain bytes with values ranging from 0 to 255):

    random-string to str length 8 binary

🫶 just a lil reminder: that binary one is raw. null bytes incoming. handle with care, don't be shocked. 😭

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• Encryption
• decrypt-data
• derive-key
• encrypt-data
• hash-string
• hmac-string
• random-crypto
• random-string
• See all documentation

go read those too, iykyk. 💖

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and that's the page, bestie!! this lil masterpiece came from version $VERSION, dated $DATE, and yes it's still sitting pretty in GOLF(2gg) under Development. mwah. 💅✨