Easiest way to get an array of random values from another array in PHP

Question

I'm wondering what is the easiest/cleanest way to get an array of random values from an array in PHP. It's easy to get an array of random keys but it seems there's not function to get array of values straight away

The easiest way I found out is:

$tokens = ['foo', 'bar', '...'];
$randomValues = array_map(function($k) use ($tokens) {
    return $tokens[$k];
}, array_rand($tokens, rand(7, 20)))

This returns 7-20 random values from $tokens variable. However this looks ugly and is very unclear at first sight what it does.

since your code is actually working, this looks like a prime candidate to move to codereview.stackexchange.com — Jeff Puckett
– Jeff Puckett, Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 21:56
shuffle and then array_slice to get the number of values that you want — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 21:56
Are sure you aren't getting repeated values ? I would check if the value already exists in the new array. — Pedro Lobito
– Pedro Lobito, Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 21:58

Don't Panic · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-25 22:12:11Z

2

If you don't want to modify your $tokens array, you could flip your randomly generated array keys and then use array_intersect_key. I think it's a little more readable than the array_map method, but I suppose that's fairly subjective.

$randomKeys = array_flip(array_rand($tokens, rand(7, 20)));
$randomValues = array_intersect_key($tokens, $randomKeys);

If you don't care if $tokens is modified, the shuffle\slice method seems very straightforward.

answered Apr 25, 2016 at 22:12

Don't Panic

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AbraCadaver · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-25 23:58:43Z

1

Just shuffle and then slice a random number of elements:

shuffle($tokens);
$result = array_slice($tokens, 0, rand(7, 20));

If you don't want to modify the array then obviously just assign another variable and use that:

$temp = $tokens;

edited Apr 25, 2016 at 23:58

answered Apr 25, 2016 at 21:59

AbraCadaver

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