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A comment on Dimsum is like head or tail, but pulls randomly from the entire file or stream.

Re:Dimsum is like head or tail, but pulls randomly from the ... by neilk on Monday November 26, 2012 @04:10PM (#4834037)
This doesn't come with an elaborate test suite, but it does pretty much everything that does in a few dozen lines of Perl.

https://github.com/neilk/misc/blob/master/randline

I've had this script (or versions of it) around for more than a decade. I didn't know the technique had a name.

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Re:Dimsum is like head or tail, but pulls randomly from the ... by andrewcooke on Monday November 26, 2012 @05:22PM (#4834359)
it was an example in the original camel book.

[edit: i was going to delete this, but since you replied i'll leave it - it does appear (too?) in the camel book, on p 246 of my copy, but like you say, it's for a single line. hadn't opened that book in years, took me some time to find it...]

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Re:Dimsum is like head or tail, but pulls randomly from the ... by neilk on Monday November 26, 2012 @05:27PM (#4834378)
I believe it was an example in the Perl Cookbook, but for picking a single line only. (Ancient UseNet thread: http://bit.ly/Thd4eE)
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Re:Dimsum is like head or tail, but pulls randomly from the ... by snoble on Monday November 26, 2012 @10:55PM (#4835529)
the code isn't special. but it's easy for anyone to install and use
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