RANDOM(6)

💖 RANDOM 💖

okay bestie, welcome to random(6) from the Games Manual — yes she lives in the games section, she's fun like that 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

random — random lines from a file or random numbers 🎲

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

random [-er] [denominator]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the vibe: random reads lines from standard input and copies them over to standard output — but only with a probability of 1/denominator. it's giving "maybe, maybe not" 💅

and if you don't pass a denominator? no worries babe, the default value for denominator is 2. fifty-fifty, a coin flip, iconic behavior fr fr 🪙

👑 OPTIONS 👑

the options are as follows:

• -e — if you specify this one, random does not read or write <em>anything</em>. she just exits. like, immediately. and the exit value is a random number from 0 to denominator-1, inclusive ✨ (so yes, it's a little randomness dispenser, no cap)
• -r — this one guarantees that the output is unbuffered. no sitting around in a buffer, she's posting live 🔥

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• fortune(6) — go get you some wisdom, bestie 🍓

reminder bestie: -e means literally nothing gets read or written. she's not being shy, that's just the assignment 💀

okay that's the whole page, mwah 🫶 this lil gem is from Debian and it's dated March 31, 1994 — old enough to be your cool aunt who still slays 💖✨🎀