shuf command in Linux

By Thomas Taylor | | 2 minutes
Linux

What is the shuf command in Linux?

What is the shuf command?

The shuf command in Linux is a utility for shuffling lines of input files. It allows users to shuffle contents of a file or produce random output based on supplied arguments.

How is the shuf command used?

Given a file named quotes.txt with the following contents:

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"The only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs
"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill
"Believe you can and you're halfway there." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde

the shuf command allows for a random permutation of all the lines.

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% shuf quotes.txt
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill
"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs
"Believe you can and you're halfway there." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde

In addition, it can be used in the following scenarios as well:

List 1 random quote:

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% shuf -n 1 quotes.txt
"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln

List random numbers between a range of numbers:

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% shuf -i 0-5
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1
0
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Give shuf a list of options using -e and outputing 1 chosen line using -n:

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% shuf -e option1 option2 option3 -n 1
option3

Standard input works as well:

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% seq 5 | shuf
5
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