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Random Word Generator

Last Updated on Tuesday, 15 February 2011 06:00 Monday, 14 February 2011 08:17

Sometimes a Linux user can be in need of a random word generator. Random word can be used to set a new password or simply to create a bunch randomly named directories. If you need a single word the easiest way is to visit online Random Word Generator. However, if you need to generate more words or automate your task, a Linux bash shell can be a handy friend.

The following bash random word generator uses /usr/share/dict/words as word input ( feel free to use your own ). This file should be available on all decent Linux systems.

Here is how this random word generator works:
The random word generator script first gets a total number of words available in the /usr/share/dict/words file. Next, it will generate a random number in range from 0 to total number words available. As a last step, a previously randomly generated number will be used by a sed command to print a line corresponding with a random number generated previously.

Feel free to use your own words file by altering a constant variable ALL_NON_RANDOM_WORDS .

save a following bash script as random-word-generator:

#!/bin/bash 
 
# Random Word Generator 
# linuxconfig.org 
 
if [ $# -ne 1 ] 
then 
echo "Please specify how many random words would you like to generate !" 1>&2 
echo "example: ./random-word-generator 3" 1>&2 
echo "This will generate 3 random words" 1>&2 
exit 0
fi 
 
# Constants 
X=0
ALL_NON_RANDOM_WORDS=/usr/share/dict/words
 
# total number of non-random words available 
non_random_words=`cat $ALL_NON_RANDOM_WORDS | wc -l` 
 
# while loop to generate random words  
# number of random generated words depends on supplied argument 
while [ "$X" -lt "$1" ] 
do 
random_number=`od -N3 -An -i /dev/urandom | 
awk -v f=0 -v r="$non_random_words" '{printf "%i\n", f + r * $1 / 16777216}'` 
sed `echo $random_number`"q;d" $ALL_NON_RANDOM_WORDS 
  let "X = X + 1" 
done

make random-word-generator script executable:

chmod +x random-word-generator

Execute random-word-generator script to generate 25 random words:

./random-word-generator 25

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