# *********************************************************************
#  Written by and copyright Carlo Strozzi <carlos@linux.it>.
#
#  random.txt: help text
#  Copyright (C) 2001 Carlo Strozzi <carlos@linux.it>
# 
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
#  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.
# 
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
# 
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
#  Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
#
# *********************************************************************

                      NoSQL operator: random

Pick one or more records at random from a table.

Usage: random [options]

Options:
    --input (-i) 'file'
      Read input from 'file' instead of STDIN.

    --output (-o) 'file'
      Write output to 'file' instead of STDOUT.

    --help (-h)
      Display this help text.

    --no-header (-N)
      Remove header from output.

    --lines (-L) 'N'
      Pick at most 'N' input records. By default only one
      input record is printed.

    --zero (-z)
      By default at least one record is selected. This option
      specifies that selecting no records is ok.

    --key (-K)
      Instead of printing complete records, just print their
      first (leftmost) field, supposedly the record key.
      This will save us a subsequent call to 'column' if all
      we need is to extract the record keys.

Notes:

Not many tests have been done to assess how uniform is the random
selection of input records.

$Id$
