My version: #!/bin/bash SOUNDPATH=${HOME}/.play-random/sounds if [ ! -d ${SOUNDPATH} ]; then echo "Create and populate '${SOUNDPATH}' directory"

My version: #!/bin/bash SOUNDPATH=${HOME}/.play-random/sounds if [ ! -d ${SOUNDPATH} ]; then echo "Create and populate '${SOUNDPATH}' directory" exit 1; fi SOUNDS=($(ls "${SOUNDPATH}")) NUM_SOUNDS=${#SOUNDS[*]} if [ ${NUM_SOUNDS} -eq 0 ]; then echo "No sound files found in '${SOUNDPATH}' directory" exit 1; fi # select which sound to play SOUND="${SOUNDPATH}/${SOUNDS[$((RANDOM%NUM_SOUNDS))]}" echo ${SOUND} /usr/bin/aplay ${SOUND} code at: http://aeminium.org/slug/software/shell/#play.random.sh http://aeminium.org/slug/software/shell/#play.random.sh There's a way of removing that ls ${DIR} and use an echo ${DIR}/* at the expense of making it a bit uglier to detect when there's no sound files.