What does shuf -e means in bash

Question

I have string save as

test="test1 test2
test3 test4
test5 test6"

and

echo $(shuf -e $test)

it gives me the same output as $test, why? I expect the different order of the original string

`shuf (GNU coreutils) 8.28` shuffles the words for me in Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. What linux distro and version are you running.? — sudodus, Sep 11 '19 at 18:13
I run it on git bash not working, but works on the terminal rh8 — Tiger, Sep 11 '19 at 18:47

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 11 '19 at 18:15

3

Hm.

$ test="test1 test2
> test3 test4
> test5 test6"
$ echo $test
test1 test2 test3 test4 test5 test6
$ echo $(shuf -e $test)
test4 test5 test2 test6 test1 test3
$ echo $(shuf -e $test)
test5 test2 test4 test3 test6 test1

Maybe by chance it just happened that the "randomly" chosen permutation for you was the identity permutation? Did you try several times?

answered Sep 11 '19 at 18:15

dirkt

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Thank you, it works now – Tiger Sep 11 '19 at 18:47

What does shuf -e means in bash

1 Answers1