add a randomize option in a bash script

Question

in a bash script i do run this:

seq 1 $(<howmany.txt) | xargs -I% -n1 -P$(<parallel.txt) mycommand --infile file% --option A --outfile file%.new

it works.

the values in howmany.txt and parallel.txt comes from other scripts into these files.

in this example here is the value 48 in howmany.txt and the value 4 in parallel.txt.

howmany.txt is ever in a range from not less than 4 and the maximum not over 99.

parallel.txt is ever in a range from not less than 4 and the maximum not over 16.

how to add a new feature: --option N ?

in options.txt are the values: A, B and C :

in line 1 is the value: `A`
in line 2 is the value: `B`
in line 3 is the value: `C`

how can it randomize to do in 50% to use --option A, 25% to use --option B and the rest (25%) to use --option C ?

in some cases where it can not clear divide, there must be round up or down, that is no problem. is it possible to set it up in such a way that an option D could be added later?

the best way could be if it possible to options.txt to write

50 A
25 B
rest C

or

40 A
20 B
15 C
rest D

edit:

with quotes ", it does not work, dont know why ... but it works here for me only without quates around my constructs.

i try it with --option $(shuf -n1 options.txt)

in options.txt in line 1 is A in line 2 is B and so on....

i try it with sort -R | tail -n1 instead of shuf -n1, and xargs with -P1 too. nothing brings me "random options" with xargs. dont know what is wrong here, but if i test in a terminal sort -R | tail -n1 and or shuf -n1 with options.txt it brings me everytime random output, that works, but it does not work combined with xargs? what do i wrong?!?

Answer 1

If you can build options.txt to have equal possibilities between the lines, possibly by repeating the letters as needed, then you could write: --option "$( shuf -n1 options.txt )"

(And you probably should have quotes around your other $( ... ) constructs.)