randomising tracks: scripting question

[RW]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2010 09:40:43 -0800
Chip Camden <sterling at camdensoftware.com> wrote:

> Quoth Frank Shute on Sunday, 26 December 2010:
> > I generally play my tracks of an album like so:
> > 
> > for track in $(cat trombone_shorty-backatown.m3u); do
> > mplayer $track
> > done
> > 
> > They then play in the correct order.
> > 
> > How would I go about randomising the order of play using
> > sh (preferably) or perl?
> > 
> > Sorry for the OT posting but I thought a brainteaser might clear the
> > fog caused by excessive Xmas indulgence ;)
> > 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> >  Frank
> > 
> >  Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> change "cat t...n.m3u" to "random < t..n.m3u"
> 

That should be 

random -f trombone_shorty-backatown.m3u

see random(6) for what happens when it reads directly from stdin
(without "-f -")