Some "simple" solutions for you.
Be aware that the Perl rand() function is not completely random - works ok for most situations but is not really "random" - there are biases in this (odd vs even), etc.

If you want to use rand() to plan Casino strategies, there are better number generators!

But this is one way to get the job done. I do recommend buying a copy of the Perl Cookbook. 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

#pick a "random arg from a list"

my @names = qw(ny.txt ca.txt nj.txt pa.txt ma.txt wa.txt);

my $random_file = $names[rand(@names)]; #UPDATE: previous code had
                                        #an "off-by-one" error, Oops!
print "$random_file\n";

[download]
Pick A Random Line from a file:
From: Perl Cookbook
#Chapter 8.6. Picking a Random Line from a File
#Problem: You want to return a random line from a file.
#Use rand and $. (the current line number) to decide
#which line to print:

srand;
rand($.) < 1 && ($line = $_) while <>;

[download]
Exactly how this works is complicated.
The "Cookbook" is a great book and highly recommended by me.

In reply to Re: Opening random files then reading random lines from file. by Marshall
in thread Opening random files then reading random lines from file. by fame

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