rolldice(6)                      Games Manual                      rolldice(6)

NAME
       rolldice - rolls virtual dice

SYNOPSIS
       rolldice [-s] [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 string is provided as command line arguments, rolldice uses
       stdin as input and runs interactivelly.

       The options are as follows:

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

   Dice string format
       The dice string uses the exact format outlined below.  Optional parts
       are between square brackets.  A # must be replaced by a number.

              [#x][#]d[#|%][*#][+#|-#][s#]

       [#x]   How many times to roll.  If omitted, defaults to 1 roll.

       [#]d[#|%]
              Main part of the dice string.  The first number is the number of
              dice to roll in each roll, if omitted, roll just one die.  The
              second number is the number of sides the dice have, if omitted,
              roll 6-sided die.  The second number can be replaced by a
              percent sign, implying a 100-sided die.  The numbers rolled on
              each die are then added up and given as the result.

       [*#]   How many times to multiply the result of each roll.  If omitted,
              defaults to 1.

       [+#|-#]
              Number to be added or subtracted, depending on the sign, from
              each roll.  If omitted, defaults to 0.  This step is handled
              after the multiplication.

       [s#]   How many lowest dice rolls to drop.  If omitted, defaults to 0.
              This step is handled before the multiplication.

EXIT STATUS
       0      Success.

       >0     Error occurred.

EXAMPLES
       Roll three six-sided dice and sum the results:

              rolldice 3d

       Roll four eight-sided dice and sum the results, them multiply the
       result by 2 and add 2 to it:

              rolldice 4d8*2+2

       Roll four six-sided dice, drop the lowest result and add the remaining
       results. Do this three times:

              rolldice 3x4d6s1

HISTORY
       This version of rolldice was written as an exercise for practicing C.

       This version of rolldice was inspired (but not based) on the rolldice
       implementation by Stevie Strickland, but the code was written from
       scratch.  This manual, however, was based on the manual of Stevie's
       implementation.

                                                                   rolldice(6)