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array_rand

(PHP 4 , PHP 5)

array_rand --  Pick one or more random entries out of an array

Description

mixed array_rand ( array input [, int num_req] )

array_rand() is rather useful when you want to pick one or more random entries out of an array. It takes an input array and an optional argument num_req which specifies how many entries you want to pick - if not specified, it defaults to 1.

If you are picking only one entry, array_rand() returns the key for a random entry. Otherwise, it returns an array of keys for the random entries. This is done so that you can pick random keys as well as values out of the array.

Note: As of PHP 4.2.0, there is no need to seed the random number generator with srand() or mt_srand() as this is now done automatically.

Example 1. array_rand() example

<?php
srand((float) microtime() * 10000000);
$input = array("Neo", "Morpheus", "Trinity", "Cypher", "Tank");
$rand_keys = array_rand($input, 2);
echo $input[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
echo $input[$rand_keys[1]] . "\n";
?>

See also shuffle().

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