How to get a random string of 32 hexadecimal digits through command line?

Question

I\'d like to put together a command that will print out a string of 32 hexadecimal digits. I\'ve got a Python script that works:

python -c \'import random ; prin         


        

Answer 1

Here are a few more options, all of which have the nice property of providing an obvious and easy way to directly select the length of the output string. In all the cases below, changing the '32' to your desired string length is all you need to do.

#works in bash and busybox, but not in ksh
tr -dc 'A-F0-9' < /dev/urandom | head -c32

#works in bash and ksh, but not in busybox
tr -dc 'A-F0-9' < /dev/urandom | dd status=none bs=1 count=32

#works in bash, ksh, AND busybox! w00t!
tr -dc 'A-F0-9' < /dev/urandom | dd bs=1 count=32 2>/dev/null

EDIT: Tested in different shells.