Random file of set length

On Wed, 11 Sep 2002, Randy Kaelber wrote:

> Matt Alexander wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 11 Sep 2002, Gilbert T. Gutierrez, Jr. wrote:
> >
> > > I want to create a random file of 5MB. How do I do that?
> >
> > dd if=/dev/zero of=somefile bs=1024k count=5
>
> Depending on one definition of random ("I need a J. Random 5 meg file")
> that works, However, another definition ("I need a file with 5 megs of
> random data") this suggests a slightly different approach:

Yes... I read his question the first way... as in, "I want to make some
miscellaneous, non-important file of 5MB in size." Ah well, that's what
makes the English language so much fun. ;-)