Random echo: PHP

Right. I'm useless with PHP so I'll explain what I would like..

Say I've got loads of different lines of song lyrics. I want to put these lyrics into a php script which would chose a random one each time the page is loaded / refreshed and echoed to the page.

Should be simple, I used to know how to do this but my old age has got the better of me (lol, jk).

Thanks, +REP to those who assist.

Put all the song lyrics on lines in notepad, save as TXT file

PHP Code:

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<?php
$quotes = "lyrics.txt";
$quotes = file($quotes);
srand((double)microtime() * 1000000);
$ranNum = rand(0, count($quotes)-1);
echo ($quotes[$ranNum]);
?>

---

Thank you. Perfect :D

REP / thread closed.

Simpler way

PHP Code:

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<?php
$array = array("LINE1", "LINE2", "LINE3","etc..");

echo $array[ rand( 0, count( $array ) - 1 ) ];
?>

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should work, untested

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blob

Simpler way

PHP Code:

---

<?php
$array = array("LINE1", "LINE2", "LINE3","etc..");

echo $array[ rand( 0, count( $array ) - 1 ) ];
?>

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should work, untested

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Then he has to put all those lyrics into that array... which is time consuming; as well as pointless when he could just separate each line from the text file... it's so much easier to put new lines then quotes and commas round each one.

Thanks both. Any cleaner way to do it using the first method? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jahova

Thanks both. Any cleaner way to do it using the first method? :)

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You don't have to seed the RNG if you're using above PHP 4.2 I think?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dentafrice

You don't have to seed the RNG if you're using above PHP 4.2 I think?

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English would be brilliant :D Maybe an example? Thanks

PHP Code:

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<?php

function random_quote($data) {
    $random_number = rand(0, count($data) - 1);
    return $data[$random_number];
}

$filename = "lyrics.txt"; // path to lyrics file
$data = file($filename); // gets each line of a file and puts it into an array.

echo random_quote($data);
echo random_quote($data);
?>

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That lets you display a random quote each time you call random_quote.

Thanks for your time, all. +REPPED