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rated 0 times [ 7] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 4989 / 2 Years ago, fri, january 7, 2022, 1:04:29

I have a text file and I want to delete random lines from a range. Here is an example:

Line 1: abcd

Line 2: efgh

Line 3: ijkl

Line 4: mnop

Line 5: qrst

Line 6: uvwxyz

Out of these six, I want to randomly delete, say, 3.

How to get that done? It would be great if there is a solution in vim, so one can apply it on different ranges.

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answered 2 Years ago quivedge · Accepted Answer

Here's a solution using sed:

sed -i $((start + RANDOM % range))d filename.txt

where:

RANDOM is bash's random number generator; a special shell variable that holds a random integer between 0 and 32767 when you use it.

So, for example, to delete a random line between lines 90 and 120 in file test.txt, you'd use:

sed -i $((90 + RANDOM % 30))d test.txt