Get a random sentence from a selection each time in Batch

Question

Is there a way of making it so instead of saying the same echo that you set every time, you can give a list of echos and it chooses a random one to say each time it reaches that echo command?

Answer 1

Yep. Here's a proof of concept.

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set string[0]=This is the first random line.
set string[1]=This is the second random line.
set string[2]=This is the third random line.

set /a idx=%random% * 3 / 32768

echo !string[%idx%]!

Here's more info on generating random numbers in Windows batch scripting.

Answer 2

@echo OFF
SETLOCAL
SET message0=message zero
SET message1=message one
SET message2=message two
SET message3=message three
SET message4=message four

:: running 10 times

FOR /l %%i IN (1,1,10) DO CALL :showme
GOTO :eof

:showme
SET /a select=%RANDOM% %% 5
CALL SET message=%%message%select%%%
ECHO %message%
GOTO :eof