NAME

       rolldice - rolls virtual dice

SYNOPSIS

       rolldice [ options ] [dice_string [dice_string ...]]

DESCRIPTION

       rolldice  rolls  virtual  dice.   The  dice  strings  passed  on  the command line contain
       information on the dice to roll in a format comparable to the format  used  in  most  role
       playing games.

       If no dice strings are provided as command line arguments, rolldice uses stdin as input.

OPTIONS

              -h,--help
                     returns the usage of diceroll

              -v,--version
                     returns the version of diceroll

              -r,--random
                     uses /dev/random for random number generating

              -u,--urandom
                     uses /dev/urandom for random number generating (default)

              -s,--separate
                     prints  out  the  result  of  each individual die separately, as well as the
                     operations and totals

              -i,--interactive
                     prompts the user to input dice strings. Differs from normal stdin  input  in
                     that  errors do not cause the program to immediately exit, but rather return
                     to the prompt.

DICE STRING FORMAT

       The dice string uses the following format:

              {#x}{#}d[#|%]{*#}{+/-#}{s#}

       The dice string doesn't have to be in the exact format outlined above,  but  this  is  the
       order  I  use.   It will try to parse any different string containing the same sections in
       the best way it can, and will throw out anything that isn't one of the sections below.

              {#}d[#|%]
                     The first number is the number of dice to roll, and the second number is the
                     number  of  sides  the  dice  have.  The numbers rolled on each die are then
                     added up and given as the result.  Hence 3d6  means  "roll  three  six-sided
                     dice, add them together and return the result".  If the first number is left
                     out, then the number of dice defaults to 1.  If the second number is  not  a
                     number, but a percentage sign (%), then the number of sides becomes 100 (for
                     a percentage roll).  If this is not included in the dice  string,  then  the
                     default is 1d6.

              {#x}   This  number  describes how many times to roll.  For example, if you want to
                     roll 3 6-sided dice 6 times, you use the dice string  6x3d6.   This  returns
                     six numbers, corresponding to the six different rolls.

              {*#}   This  number  describes  how many times to multiply the result of each roll.
                     3d6*100 returns a number in the range of 300-1800, because 3-18 is the range
                     for 3d6 and the result is then multipled by 100.

              {+/-#} This  number  is  the  modifier  to be added or subtracted, depending on the
                     sign, from each roll.  1d4+1 results in a range from 2-5 (1-4 for  the  die,
                     plus 1).  This step is handled *after* the multiplication modifier.

              {s#}   This  number  describes  how  many  lowest dice rolls to drop.  This step is
                     handled *before* the multiplication modifier.

       in the order show above.  For an extreme example, "3x4d6*5+1s2" would roll four  six-sided
       dice, drop the lowest two, multiply the result by 5, add 1 to that, and repeat the process
       two more times, for a total of three results.

DIAGNOSTICS

       The following error messages may appear on STDERR:

       Requested * is too large
              Memory could not be allocated while parsing  the  string  passed  to  the  rolldice
              program
       Problems with the malformed dice string
              The dice string contains a syntax error (see upper section DICE STRING FORMAT)
       Unknown option
              An unknown command-line option was provided

       The exit values returned by rolldice follow the BSD convention.

AUTHOR

       Stevie Strickland <sstrickl@ccs.neu.edu>

VERSION

       1.16 - 18 Dec 2012