---
title: "How To Shuffle Text and Numbers In Linux Using `shuf`"
description: "Your Linux system comes pre-loaded with many helpful command line utilities. Some of these are commonly used and mentioned, like cat, grep, or diff. But there are many more utilities hidden in your..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/server/linux/shuf-command/
date: 2021-08-24
modified: 2021-08-24
author: "Christopher Maiorana"
categories: ["Linux"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# How To Shuffle Text and Numbers In Linux Using `shuf`

![How to use Linux shuf command in Linux
](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/How-To-Shuffle-Text-in-Linux-1024x538.png)

Your Linux system comes pre-loaded with many helpful command line utilities. Some of these are commonly used and mentioned, like `[cat](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/server/linux/using-the-linux-cat-command/)`, `[grep](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/grep-command/)`, or `[diff](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/server/linux/diff/)`. But there are many more utilities hidden in your system that might be of use to you. A good working knowledge of command line utilities can help you write small, efficient scripts, and give you a better overall sense of what you have available to you in your system for completing your tasks.

- [Shuffle Text From Standard Input](#orgacc4397)
- [Shuffle Lines of Text From File](#orgd934c4c)
- [Random Number Generation](#org670b169)

What are the use cases for shuffling text? With an obscure tool like `shuf`, an immediate use case is not obvious. But imagine you have a list, or several lines of text in a file, and you want to randomly sort them. Let’s say you have a list of server maintenance tasks, and you can’t decide which one to work on first. Let `shuf` shuffle them for you.

## Shuffle Text From Standard Input

The `shuf` command will shuffle what you give it. Using the -e option, it will treat each operand as a separate input line:

$ shuf -e one two three
two
three
one

Notice how the random output sorted “one two three” into “two three one.”

## Shuffle Lines of Text From File

But in many cases, you might not be shuffling data from standard input but instead feeding data from a file. For example, let’s say we have file called `input.txt` with the following lines of text:

First line
Second line
Third line

We can use `shuf` to shuffle each of these lines and provide us with a result:

$ shuf input.txt
Third line
Second line
First line

## Random Number Generation

With `shuf`, you can also easily simulate a dice roll or random number generation using numbers as input. The following command will simulate five rolls of a single die:

shuf -r -n 5 -i 1-6

The `-r` option allows a number to be repeated. The `-n` limits the amount of rolls to produce 5 lines of output, and `-i` indicates the range of input (in this case, 6).

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