Display a random man page

dir="/bin"; man $(ls $dir |sed -n "$(echo $(( $RANDOM % $(ls $dir |wc -l | awk "{ print $1; }" ) + 1 )) )p")

Broaden your knowledge of the utilities available to you in no particular order whatsoever! Then use that knowledge to create more nifty one-liners that you can post here. =p Takes a random number modulo the number of files in $dir, prints the filename corresponding to that number, and passes it as an argument to man.

-2

By: camocrazed

2010-08-20 16:31:50

dir ls man sed man sed awk echo wc

6 Alternatives + Submit Alt

Display a random man page

I'm not sure why you would want to do this, but this seems a lot simpler (easier to understand) than the version someone submitted using awk.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

man $(ls /bin | shuf | head -1)

goodevilgenius · 2010-08-20 23:12:51 5
Display a random man page
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

man $(ls /bin | shuf -n1)

jubnzv · 2016-06-28 18:34:46 12
Display a random man page

Great idea camocrazed. Another twist would be to display a different man page based on the day of the year. The following will continuously cycle through all man pages: man $(ls /bin | sed -n $(($(date +%j) % $(ls /bin | wc -l)))p)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

man $(ls /bin | sed -n $((RANDOM % $(ls /bin | wc -l) + 1))p)

putnamhill · 2010-08-20 17:15:33 6
Display a random man page

Another one. Maybe not the quicker because of the sort command, but it will also look in other man sections. updated with goodevilgenius 'shuf' idea
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

man $(ls -1 /usr/share/man/man?/ | shuf -n1 | cut -d. -f1)

dooblem · 2010-08-20 23:36:10 4
Display a random man page
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

(cd /bin; set -- *; x=$((1+($RANDOM % $#))); man ${!x})

quintic · 2010-08-20 17:19:56 4

What Others Think

It worked on my machine, once I changed the first "ls" to "command ls". (I have a .bashrc ls function which sets --classify, so '*' is appended to all executables.) How about: (cd /bin; set -- *; x=$((1+($RANDOM % $#))); man ${!x})

quintic · 737 weeks and 5 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 101 weeks and 2 days ago

pugpuppies95 · 63 weeks and 3 days ago

yeneba6574 · 18 weeks and 2 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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