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

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

       1.14 - 18 Dec 2012

Linux                                              18 Dec 2012                                       ROLLDICE(6)