here's my random file script to recursively choose a number of random files matching a regex from a directory or list of directories

#!/usr/bin/env perl

# recursively choose a number of files optionally matchinng a regex
# from a directory or list of directories. defaults to cwd.
# outputs absolute paths by default, relative with -r
# use like so:
# randomfile -n 23 -p \(mp3\|ogg\|flac\)$ ~/music ~/music2

use strict;
use warnings;
use Getopt::Long;
use Cwd;
use File::Random qw/random_file/;
use File::Spec;

my $pat = '^.+$';
my $num = 1;
my $relative = 0;

GetOptions(
    'p|pattern=s' => \$pat,
    'n|number=i' => \$num,
    'r|relative' => \$relative,
    );

while ($num) {
    my $random_file;
    my $dir;
    do {
    $dir = $ARGV[rand @ARGV] or cwd();
        $random_file = random_file( -dir       => $dir,
                                    -check => qr/$pat/,
                                    -recursive => 1);
    } until $random_file;
    $random_file = "$dir/$random_file";
    $random_file = File::Spec->abs2rel($random_file) if $relative;
    print "$random_file\n";
    --$num;
}
[download]

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.