Random Name Shell Script

tebucky · 04-27-2005, 12:23 PM

Hello,

I am very new to shell scripting and looking for a little help. Could someone show me the contents of a script that would read a file with a list of first and last names and randomly select that name out of the aforesaid list? As you can tell this is for a random raffle.

TIA!

david_ross · 04-27-2005, 12:38 PM

Assuming the names are in names.txt:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

total=`wc -l names.txt | awk {'print $1'}`

rand=$(((($RANDOM*$total)/32767)+1))

echo Winner is person $rand

head -n $rand names.txt | tail -n 1

tebucky · 04-27-2005, 12:47 PM

perfect!