4 replies to this topic

[Bouzy210]

So for my website I decided to intigrate some php. What I want to do is display random text so every time a page is refresed a different paragraph is displayed in a certain spot. For this all I can figure is I need the $i = rand or something like that and an array with text strings in it. Could someone describe what I need to do here. I am a bit unclear about how to make the random funtion work with text strings and stuff.. Some sample code might also help.

(I have looked on P2life and the only tutorials I can find are about displaying random images.)

[Demonslay]

The concept is the exact same, only you just place text instead of images.

$text = array();
$text[0] = 'Heres a random sentence.';
$text[1] = 'Les lapins viennent!';
$text[2] = 'Foobarglarz!';

echo $text[rand(0, count($text))];

[Bouzy210]

Thanks I will try that in the morning.

[Demonslay]

Opps, small error in my code. Forgot to subtract one from the max random number in order to compensate for array index numbering.

$text = array();
$text[0] = 'Heres a random sentence.';
$text[1] = 'Les lapins viennent!';
$text[2] = 'Foobarglarz!';

echo $text[rand(0, count($text) - 1)];

[Ali Imran]

Nice code Demonslay. Few cents from me.

You can also maintain different strings in a plain text file and load them easily.

for example your text file has 4 lines and each line is a different text.

//Load entire file in array

$text = file("mystrings.txt");

//Do some clean up, discard empty lines etc, and trim

foreach($text as $k => $v) {
   $v = str_replace("\r",str_replace("\n",trim($v)));
   if($v == '') 
	   unset($text[$k]);
   else
	   $text[$k] = $v;
}

//Now pick random one

$random_text = $text[rand(0,count($text)-1)];

print "$random_text <br/>";

This way it becomes easy for you to update text file rather than getting into code again and again.


regards