# String::Random - Generates a random string from a pattern # Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Steven Pritchard # # This program is free software; you can redistribute it # and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. # # 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. # # $Id: Random.pm,v 1.4 2006/09/21 17:34:07 steve Exp $ package String::Random; require 5.006_001; use strict; use warnings; use Carp; use Exporter (); our @ISA = qw(Exporter); our %EXPORT_TAGS = ( 'all' => [ qw( &random_string &random_regex ) ] ); our @EXPORT_OK = ( @{ $EXPORT_TAGS{'all'} } ); our @EXPORT = (); our $VERSION = '0.22'; # These are the various character sets. our @upper=("A".."Z"); our @lower=("a".."z"); our @digit=("0".."9"); our @punct=map { chr($_); } (33..47,58..64,91..96,123..126); our @any=(@upper, @lower, @digit, @punct); our @salt=(@upper, @lower, @digit, ".", "/"); our @binary=map { chr($_) } (0..255); # What's important is how they relate to the pattern characters. # These are the old patterns for randpattern/random_string. our %old_patterns = ( 'C' => [ @upper ], 'c' => [ @lower ], 'n' => [ @digit ], '!' => [ @punct ], '.' => [ @any ], 's' => [ @salt ], 'b' => [ @binary ], ); # These are the regex-based patterns. our %patterns = ( # These are the regex-equivalents. '.' => [ @any ], '\d' => [ @digit ], '\D' => [ @upper, @lower, @punct ], '\w' => [ @upper, @lower, @digit, "_" ], '\W' => [ grep { $_ ne "_" } @punct ], '\s' => [ " ", "\t" ], # Would anything else make sense? '\S' => [ @upper, @lower, @digit, @punct ], # These are translated to their double quoted equivalents. '\t' => [ "\t" ], '\n' => [ "\n" ], '\r' => [ "\r" ], '\f' => [ "\f" ], '\a' => [ "\a" ], '\e' => [ "\e" ], ); # These characters are treated specially in randregex(). our %regch = ( "\\" => sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; if (@{$chars}) { my $tmp=shift(@{$chars}); if ($tmp eq "x") { # This is supposed to be a number in hex, so # there had better be at least 2 characters left. $tmp=shift(@{$chars}) . shift(@{$chars}); push(@{$string}, [chr(hex($tmp))]); } elsif ($tmp=~/[0-7]/) { carp "octal parsing not implemented. treating literally."; push(@{$string}, [$tmp]); } elsif (defined($patterns{"\\$tmp"})) { $ch.=$tmp; push(@{$string}, $patterns{$ch}); } else { carp "'\\$tmp' being treated as literal '$tmp'"; push(@{$string}, [$tmp]); } } else { croak "regex not terminated"; } }, '.' => sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; push(@{$string}, $patterns{$ch}); }, '[' => sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; my @tmp; while (defined($ch=shift(@{$chars})) && ($ch ne "]")) { if (($ch eq "-") && @{$chars} && @tmp) { $ch=shift(@{$chars}); for (my $n=ord($tmp[$#tmp]);$n sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; unshift(@{$chars}, split("", "{0,}")); }, '+' => sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; unshift(@{$chars}, split("", "{1,}")); }, '?' => sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; unshift(@{$chars}, split("", "{0,1}")); }, '{' => sub { my ($self, $ch, $chars, $string)=@_; my ($n, $closed); for ($n=0;$n[$n] eq "}") { $closed++; last; } } if ($closed) { my $tmp; while (defined($ch=shift(@{$chars})) && ($ch ne "}")) { croak "'$ch' inside {} not supported" if ($ch!~/[\d,]/); $tmp.=$ch; } if ($tmp=~/,/) { if (my ($min,$max) = $tmp =~ /^(\d*),(\d*)$/) { $min = 0 if (!length($min)); $max = $self->{'_max'} if (!length($max)); croak "bad range {$tmp}" if ($min>$max); if ($min == $max) { $tmp = $min; } else { $tmp = $min + int(rand($max - $min +1)); } } else { croak "malformed range {$tmp}"; } } if ($tmp) { my $last=$string->[$#{$string}]; for ($n=0;$n<($tmp-1);$n++) { push(@{$string}, $last); } } else { pop(@{$string}); } } else { # { isn't closed, so treat it literally. push(@{$string}, [$ch]); } }, ); sub new { my $proto=shift; my $class=ref($proto) || $proto; my $self; $self={ %old_patterns }; # makes $self refer to a copy of %old_patterns my %args=(); %args=@_ if (@_); if (defined($args{'max'})) { $self->{'_max'}=$args{'max'}; } else { $self->{'_max'}=10; } return bless($self, $class); } # Returns a random string for each regular expression given as an # argument, or the strings concatenated when used in a scalar context. sub randregex { my $self=shift; croak "called without a reference" if (!ref($self)); my @strings=(); while (defined(my $pattern=shift)) { my $ch; my @string=(); my $string=''; # Split the characters in the pattern # up into a list for easier parsing. my @chars=split(//, $pattern); while (defined($ch=shift(@chars))) { if (defined($regch{$ch})) { $regch{$ch}->($self, $ch, \@chars, \@string); } elsif ($ch=~/[\$\^\*\(\)\+\{\}\]\|\?]/) { # At least some of these probably should have special meaning. carp "'$ch' not implemented. treating literally."; push(@string, [$ch]); } else { push(@string, [$ch]); } } foreach $ch (@string) { $string.=$ch->[int(rand(scalar(@{$ch})))]; } push(@strings, $string); } return wantarray ? @strings : join("", @strings); } # For compatibility with an ancient version, please ignore... sub from_pattern { my $self=shift; croak "called without a reference" if (!ref($self)); return $self->randpattern(@_); } sub randpattern { my $self=shift; croak "called without a reference" if (!ref($self)); my @strings=(); while (defined(my $pattern=shift)) { my $string=''; for my $ch (split(//, $pattern)) { if (defined($self->{$ch})) { $string.=$self->{$ch}->[int(rand(scalar(@{$self->{$ch}})))]; } else { croak qq(Unknown pattern character "$ch"!); } } push(@strings, $string); } return wantarray ? @strings : join("", @strings); } sub random_regex { my $foo=new String::Random; return $foo->randregex(@_); } sub random_string { my($pattern,@list)=@_; my($n,$foo); $foo=new String::Random; for ($n=0;$n<=$#list;$n++) { @{$foo->{$n}}=@{$list[$n]}; } return $foo->randpattern($pattern); } 1; __END__ =head1 NAME String::Random - Perl module to generate random strings based on a pattern =head1 SYNOPSIS use String::Random; $foo = new String::Random; print $foo->randregex('\d\d\d'); # Prints 3 random digits print $foo->randpattern("..."); # Prints 3 random printable characters I use String::Random qw(random_regex random_string); print random_regex('\d\d\d'); # Also prints 3 random digits print random_string("..."); # Also prints 3 random printable characters =head1 DESCRIPTION This module makes it trivial to generate random strings. As an example, let's say you are writing a script that needs to generate a random password for a user. The relevant code might look something like this: use String::Random; $pass = new String::Random; print "Your password is ", $pass->randpattern("CCcc!ccn"), "\n"; This would output something like this: Your password is UDwp$tj5 If you are more comfortable dealing with regular expressions, the following code would have a similar result: use String::Random; $pass = new String::Random; print "Your password is ", $pass->randregex('[A-Z]{2}[a-z]{2}.[a-z]{2}\d'), "\n"; =head2 Patterns The pre-defined patterns (for use with C and C) are as follows: c Any lowercase character [a-z] C Any uppercase character [A-Z] n Any digit [0-9] ! A punctuation character [~`!@$%^&*()-_+={}[]|\:;"'.<>?/#,] . 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 C that contained all upper and lower case letters (C<[A-Za-z]>), the following would work: $foo = new String::Random; $foo->{'A'} = [ 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z' ]; I $foo = new String::Random; $foo->{'A'} = [ @{$foo->{'C'}}, @{$foo->{'c'}} ]; The random_string function, described below, has an alternative interface for adding patterns. =head2 Methods =over 8 =item new =item new max =E I Create a new String::Random object. Optionally a parameter C can be included to specify the maximum number of characters to return for C<*> and other regular expression patters that don't return a fixed number of characters. =item 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. =item 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. =back =head2 Functions =over 8 =item random_string PATTERN,LIST =item 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 =back =head1 BUGS This is Bug Free(TM) code. (At least until somebody finds one...) =head1 AUTHOR Steven Pritchard =head1 SEE ALSO perl(1). =cut # vi: set ai et: