Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!tvcent!andrew
From: andrew@tvcent.uucp (Andrew Cowie)
Newsgroups: alt.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Printing of a random quote.
Summary: fortune script
Message-ID: <1989Dec19.181040.1554@tvcent.uucp>
Date: 19 Dec 89 18:10:40 GMT
References: <1989Dec16.064319.21721@agate.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: andrew@tvcent.UUCP (Andrew Cowie)
Distribution: na
Organization: TVC Enterprises
Lines: 43

In article <1989Dec16.064319.21721@agate.berkeley.edu> c60c-4ay@e260-1b (Raja S Kushalnagar) writes:
>  (lines deleted)
>and so on.  I could write a C program to print a quote at random.  But I was
>wondering if it could be done with Unix commands or awk alone.  Could it?

Yes. A while ago a small script was posted that got a random quote
from a file of star trek quotes. Here is the script:

--------
#
# fortune.sh - uses $$ for rand.
#
a=`expr $$ % 400`
expr "     $a" : '.*\(.....\)'  | \
join -t% -o 2.2 - $HOME/bin/stquotes
--------

It operates on a file of the following format: (there were 400 originally,
I figured that you didn't need the whole file :-)

--------
    0%Star Trek Lives!
    1%Schshschshchsch.
    1%    -- The Gorn, "Arena," stardate 3046.2.
    2%Live long and prosper.
    2%    -- Spock, "Amok Time," stardate 3372.7.
    3%Totally illogical, there was no chance.
    3%    -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven," stardate 2822.3.
    4%All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars.
    4%    -- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion," stardate 3259.2.
    5%We have found all life forms in the galaxy are capable of
    5%superior development.
    5%    -- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion," stardate 3211.7.
--------

Note that quotes can be of any length. I hope this works for what you are
trying to do.

>	Raja S Kushalnagar.

--
Andrew F. Cowie at TVC Enterprises, Toronto, Canada.
uunet!mnetor!lethe!tvcent!andrew  andrew@tvcent.uucp