9 really odd Linux commands
By Sandra Henry-Stocker , Unix Dweeb, Network World |
You can probably make your Unix systems hum -- deliver great performance, withstand threats to file system integrity, resist hacker attacks, report problems, and run smoothly no matter what your users throw at them. But can you make them do goofy things? Let's look at a collection of some really oddball tools that you might never have heard of are tried.
The shuf command -- short for "shuffle" reorganizes the lines of a file in some pseudorandom way. Start out with a file listing the days of the week and you can rearrange them in any of 5,040 ways (7 * 6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2). Maybe more useful for determining who brings cookies into the office each day for the next couple of weeks.
You don't have to display the result of the entire shuffling either. Trying to decide who of your two dozen coworkers gets to bring in cookies for the rest of the week? No need to draw straws. Just limit the output to three of your shuf command with -n option like this.
