# *********************************************************************
# Written by and copyright Carlo Strozzi <carlos@linux.it>.
#
# random.txt: help text
# Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Carlo Strozzi <carlos@linux.it>
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
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#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
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# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
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# *********************************************************************
# $Id: random.txt,v 1.2 2003/03/17 10:10:44 carlo Exp $

                      NoSQL operator: random

Pick one or more records at random from a table.

Usage: random [options]

Options:
    --input (-i) 'file'
      Read input from 'file' instead of STDIN.

    --output (-o) 'file'
      Write output to 'file' instead of STDOUT.

    --help (-h)
      Display this help text.

    --no-header (-N)
      Remove header from output.

    --lines (-L) 'N'
      Pick at most 'N' input records. By default only one
      input record is printed.

    --zero (-z)
      By default at least one record is selected. This option
      specifies that selecting no records is ok.

    --key (-K)
      Instead of printing complete records, just print their
      first (leftmost) field, supposedly the record key.
      This will save us a subsequent call to 'column' if all
      we need is to extract the record keys.

Notes:

Not many tests have been done to assess how uniform is the random
selection of input records.

