Re: [PATCH] Makes sort create random order

[Paul Jarc]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
> You are asking for a program that randomly permutes its input.  Then
> let's design another program to do that, and not get bogged down
> with how its features work together with "sort"'s existing zoo of
> options.

That might be the best thing: create a new randomizer command, and
then see how much the requests for "sort -R" drop off.  There are
probably some people who want the TODO's sort -R, and some who want a
randomizer, but they may not make it clear which one they want.  Even
sort -R could then be scripted as sort | randomizer, in cases where
the user doesn't care about keeping ties clustered.

> By [**] I meant that if you sort two permutations of the same input
> file, and use the same random seed for both sorts, you'll get the
> same output.  This is roughly the same as [*], then.

Ah, that makes sense.


paul