In this tutorial, you shall learn about PHP array_rand() function which can get us a random key from an array, with syntax and examples.
PHP arrayrand Function
The PHP array_rand() function returns a random key from an array. Or you can tell array_rand() to return a specific number of keys taken from an array randomly. In case array_rand() returns multiple keys, it returns them as array.
Syntax of arrayrand
The syntax of array_rand() function is
array_rand( array, number)
where
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| array | [mandatory] Array from which keys are picked randomly. |
| number | [optional] Number of keys the function has to return. The default value is 1. |
Function Return Value
array_rand() returns a random key from an array. The function returns an indexed array of random keys if you specify an argument for the parameter number.
Examples
1 Get a random key from the array
In this example, we will take an associative array with key-value pairs. We will call array_rand() function with this array passed as argument for the parameter array. We are not passing any argument for parameter number. Only one key would be returned by the function, since the default value for parameter number is 1.
PHP Program
<?php
$array1 = array("a"=>21, "b"=>54, "m"=>35, "k"=>66);
$key = array_rand($array1);
echo $key;
?>
Output
2 Get array of random keys from Array
In this example, we will take an associative array with key-value pairs. We will call array_rand() function to return 3 keys picked randomly from the array.
PHP Program
<?php
$array1 = array("a"=>21, "b"=>54, "m"=>35, "k"=>66);
$number = 3;
$keys = array_rand($array1, $number);
print_r($keys);
?>
Output
array_rand() returns keys of the original array as values in indexed array.
You can access the individual keys using index.
Conclusion
In this PHP Tutorial, we learned how to , using PHP Array array_rand() function.