Patterns

  c        Any Latin lowercase character [a-z]
  C        Any Latin uppercase character [A-Z]
  n        Any digit [0-9]
  !        A punctuation character [~`!@$%^&*()-_+={}[]|\:;"'.<>?/#,]
  .        Any of the above
  s        A "salt" character [A-Za-z0-9./]
  b        Any binary data

These can be modified, but if you need a different pattern it is better to create another pattern, possibly using one of the pre-defined as a base. For example, if you wanted a pattern "A" that contained all upper and lower case letters ("[A-Za-z]"), the following would work:

  my $gen = String::Random->new;
  $gen->{'A'} = [ 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z' ];

or

  my $gen = String::Random->new;
  $gen->{'A'} = [ @{$gen->{'C'}}, @{$gen->{'c'}} ];

or

  my $gen = String::Random->new;
  $gen->set_pattern(A => [ 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z' ]);

The random_string function, described below, has an alternative interface for adding patterns.

Methods

new

new max => number

new rand_gen => sub

Create a new String::Random object.

Optionally a parameter "max" can be included to specify the maximum number of characters to return for "*" and other regular expression patterns that do not return a fixed number of characters.

Optionally a parameter "rand_gen" can be included to specify a subroutine coderef for generating the random numbers used in this module. The coderef must accept one argument "max" and return an integer between 0 and "max - 1". The default rand_gen coderef is

 sub {
     my ($max) = @_;
     return int rand $max;
 }
    

randpattern LIST

The randpattern method returns a random string based on the concatenation of all the pattern strings in the list.

It will return a list of random strings corresponding to the pattern strings when used in list context.

randregex LIST

The randregex method returns a random string that will match the regular expression passed in the list argument.

Please note that the arguments to randregex are not real regular expressions. Only a small subset of regular expression syntax is actually supported. So far, the following regular expression elements are supported:

  \w    Alphanumeric + "_".
  \d    Digits.
  \W    Printable characters other than those in \w.
  \D    Printable characters other than those in \d.
  .     Printable characters.
  []    Character classes.
  {}    Repetition.
  *     Same as {0,}.
  ?     Same as {0,1}.
  +     Same as {1,}.
    

Regular expression support is still somewhat incomplete. Currently special characters inside [] are not supported (with the exception of "-" to denote ranges of characters). The parser doesn't care for spaces in the "regular expression" either.

get_pattern STRING

Return a pattern given a name.

  my $gen = String::Random->new;
  $gen->get_pattern('C');
    

(Added in version 0.32.)

set_pattern STRING ARRAYREF

Add or redefine a pattern given a name and a character set.

  my $gen = String::Random->new;
  $gen->set_pattern(A => [ 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z' ]);
    

(Added in version 0.32.)

from_pattern

IGNORE! - for compatibility with an old version. DO NOT USE!

Functions

random_string PATTERN,LIST

random_string PATTERN

When called with a single scalar argument, random_string returns a random string using that scalar as a pattern. Optionally, references to lists containing other patterns can be passed to the function. Those lists will be used for 0 through 9 in the pattern (meaning the maximum number of lists that can be passed is 10). For example, the following code:

    print random_string("0101",
                        ["a", "b", "c"],
                        ["d", "e", "f"]), "\n";
    

would print something like this:

    cebd
    

random_regex REGEX_IN_STRING

Prints a string for the regular expression given as the string. See the synposis for example.

Websites

• MetaCPAN

  A modern, open-source CPAN search engine, useful to view POD in HTML format.

  <https://metacpan.org/release/String-Random>

• RT: CPAN's Bug Tracker

  The RT ( Request Tracker ) website is the default bug/issue tracking system for CPAN.

  <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=String-Random>

• CPANTS

  The CPANTS is a website that analyzes the Kwalitee ( code metrics ) of a distribution.

  <http://cpants.cpanauthors.org/dist/String-Random>

• CPAN Testers

  The CPAN Testers is a network of smoke testers who run automated tests on uploaded CPAN distributions.

  <http://www.cpantesters.org/distro/S/String-Random>

• CPAN Testers Matrix

  The CPAN Testers Matrix is a website that provides a visual overview of the test results for a distribution on various Perls/platforms.

  <http://matrix.cpantesters.org/?dist=String-Random>

• CPAN Testers Dependencies

  The CPAN Testers Dependencies is a website that shows a chart of the test results of all dependencies for a distribution.

  <http://deps.cpantesters.org/?module=String::Random>

Bugs / Feature Requests

Source Code

<https://github.com/shlomif/string-random>

  git clone http://github.com/shlomif/String-Random