bin/15205: [patch] Addition to random(6)

[Oliver Fromme]

The following reply was made to PR bin/15205; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Oliver Fromme <olli at lurza.secnetix.de>
To: arundel at FreeBSD.ORG (Alexander Best)
Cc: sterling at camdensoftware.com (Chip Camden), bug-followup at FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: bin/15205: [patch] Addition to random(6)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:06:49 +0200 (CEST)

 Alexander Best wrote:
  > On Tue Aug 10 10, Oliver Fromme wrote:
  > > But seriously ...  If you want random 4 lines out of 32
  > > (or out of any number, for that matter), the following
  > > command will do it:
  > > 
  > > $ ls /bin | random -f - | head -4
  > 
  > indeed this is an exact replacement for ls /bin | random -s 8.
 
 In fact it's a _better_ replacement because the probability
 is evenly distributed across the whole input.  This is not
 the case for the patch proposed in this PR.
 
  > > I agree that this PR can be closed.
  > 
  > thanks a lot for clearing things up. i'll close the PR right away.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Best regards
    Oliver
 
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