random-man − Show the man page of a random program |
random-man [-s] [-v] [paths...] |
−s |
Show only the summary line of the command chosen. |
||
−v |
Show which programs for which manual pages didn’t exist. |
||
paths |
Optional - a list of paths to search (uses your PATH by default). |
This shell script chooses an executable program at random from the paths specified, or your PATH environment variable if not, and invokes man to enlighten the user as to its use. This can be very valuable for those new to UNIX/Linux administration (and those who aren’t so new) that want to educate themselves on utilities they may or may not have encountered before. This utility sprung from the desire to learn more about the great utilities availble in Linux/UNIX and the lack of patience to do so in an organized manner. One very nice application of this utilitiy is to add it to your shell’s initialization file (with -s) to query the user as to their knowledge of a random utility he/she may not have known about. |
Rich Harkins (rich@worldsinfinite.com) |
man |
Requires /bin/bash. I’m too lazy to make it work with plain /bin/sh. |
Copyright (c) 2004 Rich Harkins. GPL licencing applies (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html). |