I have an array of objects in PHP. I need to select 8 of them at random. My initial thought was to use array_rand(array_flip($my_array), 8)
but that doesn't work, because the objects can't act as keys for an array.
I know I could use shuffle
, but I'm worried about performance as the array grows in size. Is that the best way, or is there a more efficient way?
$result = array();
foreach( array_rand($my_array, 8) as $k ) {
$result[] = $my_array[$k];
}
$array = array();
shuffle($array); // randomize order of array items
$newArray = array_slice($array, 0, 8);
Notice that shuffle()
function gives parameter as a reference and makes the changes on it.
You could use array_rand
to pick the keys randomly and a foreach
to gather the objects:
$objects = array();
foreach (array_rand($my_array, 8) as $key) {
$objects[] = $my_array[$key];
}
What about?:
$count = count($my_array);
for ($i = 0; $i < 8; $i++) {
$x = rand(0, $count);
$my_array[$x];
}
I just found this in our code and was hoping to find a more readable solution:
$rand = array_intersect_key($all, array_flip(array_rand($all, $count)));
You can get multiple random elements from an array with this function:
function getRandomElements(array $array): array
{
$result = [];
$count = count($array);
for ($i = 0; $i < rand(0, $count); $i++) {
$result[] = rand(0, $count);
}
$result = array_unique($result);
sort($result);
return $result;
}