The FAQ How do I select a random line from a file? answers the largest part of your question. In fact, you can use the code they give if you just set @ARGV to the list of files to read. (Thanks to how $. works with <>.) And you don't hog memory.

You can probably make your script run faster if you create (in advance) and use in your script some data about the files that allows you to choose a line without going through every signle one and possibly seek to a specific line quicker.

In reply to Re: Random entry from combined data set by wog
in thread Random entry from combined data set by Anonymous Monk

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