JOT(1)                     OpenBSD Reference Manual                     JOT(1)

NAME
     jot - print sequential or random data

SYNOPSIS
     jot [-cnr] [-b word] [-p precision] [-s string] [-w word]
         [reps [begin [end [s]]]]

DESCRIPTION
     jot is used to print out increasing, decreasing, random, or redundant da-
     ta, usually numbers, one per line.

     The options are as follows:

     -b word       Just print word repetitively.

     -c            This is an abbreviation for -w %c.

     -n            Do not print the final newline normally appended to the
                   output.

     -p precision  Print only as many digits or characters of the data as in-
                   dicated by the integer precision.  In the absence of -p,
                   the precision is the greater of the numbers begin and end.
                   The -p option is overridden by whatever appears in a
                   printf(3) conversion following -w.

     -r            Generate random data.  By default, jot generates sequential
                   data.

     -s string     Print data separated by string.  Normally, newlines sepa-
                   rate data.

     -w word       Print word with the generated data appended to it.  Octal,
                   hexadecimal, exponential, ASCII, zero-padded, and right-ad-
                   justed representations are possible by using the appropri-
                   ate printf(3) conversion specification inside word, in
                   which case the data is inserted rather than appended.

     The last four arguments indicate, respectively, the maximum number of da-
     ta, the lower bound, the upper bound, and the step size.  While at least
     one of them must appear, any of the other three may be omitted, and will
     be considered as such if given as `-'.  Any three of these arguments de-
     termines the fourth.  If four are specified and the given and computed
     values of reps conflict, the lower value is used.  If fewer than three
     are specified, defaults are assigned left to right, except for s, which
     assumes its default unless both begin and end are given.

     Defaults for the four arguments are, respectively, 100, 1, 100, and 1.
     reps is expected to be an unsigned integer, and if given as zero is taken
     to be infinite.  begin and end may be given as real numbers or as charac-
     ters representing the corresponding value in ASCII.  The last argument
     must be a real number.

     Random numbers are obtained through arc4random(3).  Historical versions
     of jot used s to seed the random number generator.  This is no longer
     supported.  The name jot derives in part from iota, a function in APL.

   Rounding and truncation
     The jot utility uses double precision floating point arithmetic internal-
     ly.  Before printing a number, it is converted depending on the output
     format used.

     If no output format is specified or the output format is a floating point
     format (`f', `e', `g', `E', or `G'), the value is rounded using the
     printf(3) function, taking into account the requested precision.

     If the output format is an integer format (`c', `d', `o', `x', `u', `D',
     `O', `X', `U', or `i'), the value is converted to an integer value by
     truncation.

     As an illustration, consider the following command:

           $ jot 6 1 10 0.5
           1
           2
           2
           2
           3
           4

     By requesting an explicit precision of 1, the values generated before
     rounding can be seen.  The .5 values are rounded down if the integer part
     is even, up otherwise.

           $ jot -p 1 6 1 10 0.5
           1.0
           1.5
           2.0
           2.5
           3.0
           3.5

     By offsetting the values slightly, the values generated by the following
     command are always rounded down:

           $ jot -p 0 6 .9999999999 10 0.5
           1
           1
           2
           2
           3
           3

     Another way of achieving the same result is to force truncation by speci-
     fying an integer format:

           $ jot -w %d 6 1 10 0.5

     For random sequences, the output format also influences the range and
     distribution of the generated numbers:

           $ jot -r 100000 1 3 | sort -n | uniq -c
           24950 1
           50038 2
           25012 3

     The values at the beginning and end of the interval are generated less
     frequently than the other values.  There are several ways to solve this
     problem and generate evenly distributed integers:

           $ jot -r -p 0 100000 0.5 3.5 | sort -n | uniq -c
           33374 1
           33363 2
           33263 3

           $ jot -w %d -r 100000 1 4 | sort -n | uniq -c
           33306 1
           33473 2
           33221 3

     Note that with random sequences, all numbers generated will be smaller
     than the upper bound.  The largest value generated will be a tiny bit
     smaller than the upper bound.  For floating point formats, the value is
     rounded as described before being printed.  For integer formats, the
     highest value printed will be one less than the requested upper bound,
     because the generated value will be truncated.

EXAMPLES
     Print 21 evenly spaced numbers increasing from -1 to 1:

           $ jot 21 -1 1.00

     Generate the ASCII character set:

           $ jot -c 128 0

     Generate the strings xaa through xaz:

           $ jot -w xa%c 26 a

     Generate 20 random 8-letter strings (note that the character `{' comes
     after the character `z' in the ASCII character set):

           $ jot -r -c 160 a { | rs -g0 0 8

     Infinitely many yes(1)'s may be obtained through:

           $ jot -b yes 0

     Thirty ed(1) substitution commands applying to lines 2, 7, 12, etc. is
     the result of:

           $ jot -w %ds/old/new/ 30 2 - 5

     Create a file containing exactly 1024 bytes:

           $ jot -b x 512 > block

     To set tabs four spaces apart starting from column 10 and ending in col-
     umn 132, use:

           $ expand -`jot -s, - 10 132 4`

     To print all lines 80 characters or longer:

           $ grep `jot -s "" -b. 80`

SEE ALSO
     ed(1), expand(1), rs(1), yes(1), arc4random(3), printf(3)

OpenBSD 4.7                      May 31, 2007                                3
