On 07/02/15 02:13, Assaf Gordon wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Attached is a proof-of-concept implementation supporting '--random=seed=N'
> option for sort/shuf/shred,
> to enable reproducible (pseudo) random runs.
> It was discussed a while ago, here:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2013-11/msg00068.html
>
> comments are welcomed,
Reproducibility is a useful though not often required goal.
Playing devil's advocate, you could get it with:
get_random() { seed="$1"; openssl enc -aes-256-ctr -pass pass:"$seed" -nosalt
</dev/zero 2>/dev/null; }
shuf -i1-100 --random-source=<(get_random 42)
While a separate dependency, it's widely available and we could document it.
The advantage is that it's an existing mechanism
and uses more silicon to generate the random numbers.
cheers,
Pádraig.
