---
name: "gsl-randist"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "gsl"
version: "2.8-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/gsl-randist"
---

# gsl-randist(1)

generate random samples from various distributions

## NAME

gsl-randist - generate random samples from various distributions

## SYNOPSYS

**gsl-randist seed n DIST param1 param2 \[..\]**

## DESCRIPTION

**gsl-randist** is a demonstration program for the GNU Scientific Library. It generates n random samples from the distribution DIST using the distribution parameters param1, param2, ...

## EXAMPLE

Here is an example.  We generate 10000 random samples from a Cauchy distribution with a width of 30 and histogram them over the range -100 to 100, using 200 bins.

     gsl-randist 0 10000 cauchy 30 \| gsl-histogram -100 100 200 \> histogram.dat

A plot of the resulting histogram will show the familiar shape of the Cauchy distribution with fluctuations caused by the finite sample size.

     awk '{print $1, $3 ; print $2, $3}' histogram.dat \| graph -T X

## SEE ALSO

**[gsl(3)](/gsl/3.md)**, **[gsl-histogram(1)](/gsl-histogram/1.md)**.

## AUTHOR

**gsl-randist** was written by James Theiler and Brian Gough. Copyright 1996-2000; for copying conditions see the GNU General Public Licence.

This manual page was added by the Dirk Eddelbuettel \<edd@debian.org\>, the Debian GNU/Linux maintainer for **GSL**.