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fish-shell/doc_src/cmds/random.rst
Johannes Altmanninger 7a59540517 docs: use :doc: role when referencing entire pages
No need to define "cmd-foo" anchors; use :doc:`foo <cmds/foo>`
instead. If we want "cmd-foo" but it should be tested.

See also 38b24c2325 (docs: Use :doc: role when linking to commands,
2022-09-23).
2025-11-06 12:58:59 +01:00

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random - generate random number
===============================
Synopsis
--------
.. synopsis::
random
random SEED
random START END
random START STEP END
random choice [ITEMS ...]
Description
-----------
``random`` generates a pseudo-random integer from a uniform distribution. The
range (inclusive) depends on the arguments.
No arguments indicate a range of 0 to 32767 (inclusive).
If one argument is specified, the internal engine will be seeded with the
argument for future invocations of ``random`` and no output will be produced.
Two arguments indicate a range from *START* to *END* (both *START* and *END* included).
Three arguments indicate a range from *START* to *END* with a spacing of *STEP*
between possible outputs.
``random choice`` will select one random item from the succeeding arguments.
The **-h** or **--help** option displays help about using this command.
Note that seeding the engine will NOT give the same result across different
systems.
You should not consider ``random`` cryptographically secure, or even
statistically accurate.
Example
-------
The following code will count down from a random even number between 10 and 20 to 1:
::
for i in (seq (random 10 2 20) -1 1)
echo $i
end
And this will open a random picture from any of the subdirectories:
::
open (random choice **.jpg)
Or, to only get even numbers from 2 to 20::
random 2 2 20
Or odd numbers from 1 to 3::
random 1 2 3 # or 1 2 4