Weird stuff with rand and include

[Anon]

I have a PHP page that choose randomly a quote in a mySQL table and display it on screen.
The script works fine until the php page contains an include (html page).
Then the random is not random anymore and always choose the 17th quote.
If i remove the include, the random works fine again...

Really weird... i'm lost

Any help most welcome
Thx

[Anon]

could it be a cache problem ?

[Anon]

Show us (a condensed-down version of) the code.

[Anon]

Are you calling srand() anywhere to randomize the rand() function??

---John Holmes...

[Anon]

Doh
i was not using srand()
and was using mt_rand()

dunno the difference between rand() and mt_rand() !

thx to you 🙂

[Anon]

dunno the difference between rand() and mt_rand() !

Two different functions providing pseudo-random numbers. mt_rand() is far superior to rand() and should be used when available. But in either case, you have to set the starting point to an unpredictable value (using srand() or mt_srand() depending on which random-function you are using) otherwise you get the same sequence each time. This is be design, so you can test something using random numbers by setting the starting point to a known value.