how to generate random numbers in a shell script?

[Florian Diesch]

Eugeneapolinary Ju <eugeneapolinary81 at yahoo.com> writes:

> # something=$[ ($RANDOM % 59 ) ] 
> # echo $something
> 29
>
>
> ok, but if I put it in a script:
>
> # echo -e '#!/bin/bash\nsomething=$[ ($RANDOM % 59 ) ]'>test.sh
>
> # cat test.sh 
> #!/bin/bash
> something=$[ ($RANDOM % 59 ) ]
>
> # sh test.sh 
> test.sh: 2: Syntax error: "(" unexpected
>
>
>
> Why??

sh doesn't support $[] (and in bash it's deprecated), and $RANDOM is
just a normal varobnale that doesn't create random numbers.

Use either 
 bash test.sh 
or make your script executable:
 chmod u+x test.sh
and execute it using
 ./test.sh


   Florian
-- 
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/doc/emacs/>