Hi everybody.

I hope you can shed some light here.
How can I generate random numbers inside one do-loop ?

Here is what I have so far:

# Random number
for (( i=1; i<=500; i++)
do
j = random
printf $j
end

The problem with this loop is that running this script twice,
the same 500 'random' numbers are generated.
I thought about using the date in seconds as a seed but
I am not sure whether this is the most eficient way to do it.
I appreciate any help

Thanks,

Serg

Use $SECONDS as seed

You can use the RANDOM environment variable to generate random numbers.

echo ${RANDOM}

If you wanted a number between say 1 and 500, you would use...

echo $((RANDOM % 500 +1))

Thanks all.

I tried to use $SECONDS but...this is my short script :

random=$seconds
for (( i=1; i<= 500; i++))
do
j=random
printf "$i number is $j";
end

and the output is

1 number is random
2 number is random
...
500 number is random

Could be a typo ?

Thanks again, Serg.
Obs. I will check your suggestion too, Damien.

typo error for me and for you
Unix is case sensitive ...

Thanks, Jean Pierre.

It was indeed those typos.
Anyway, the generated random numbers are
not really random because running the script
twice create the same set of 500 random numbers.

I am using bash shell. Do you
know if bash recognize comand $seconds ?
I solved this problem using

random=$(date +%s)

Thanks again for your help.

Serg

Extracted from 'bash' man page :