problem with randomizing title

Anon

I want to make the <title> of my web page random. I am putting random titles, on separate lines, into a file called "titles". It is in the same folder as my .php file that is generating the afformentioned page. I have two entries in the titles file and am using fgets to read them in a for loop one at a time. Then I use rand() to create a random number from 1 to the number of lines read from file. I have posted the php and phps files for you to look at, see links below. Here's the problem:

It seems that after reading lines 1 and 2, it is reading one more empty line for the eof or something because when I refresh the page, it randomly displays either one of the two titles in the file or 'untitles'. So, somehow an empty variable is getting returned with the titles...can someone take a look at this and tell me how to trap that last one?

Thanks!

I've removed all the bulk of the code to make it small and clean and easy to read. Just the pertinent stuff is there.

http://www.demerol.org/new.php
http://www.demerol.org/new.phps
and the title file:
http://www.demerol.org/titles

Anon

I'd recommend a somewhat diffrent approach.

Store your titles in an array, and use array_rand to pick one.

quick example:

<?php
srand((float)microtime() * 10000000);

$titlearray[] = "this";
$titlearray[] = "that";
$titlearray[] = "anything";
$titlearray[] = "something";

$key = array_rand($titlearray, 1);
print($titlearray[$key]);
?>

As easy as it gets, but I'd put the array in a separate file to include() in the main index-file.

rebelo

The reason I am storing them in the format I am is because there will be a script that will generate a form that users can use to add quotes to the file. If I store the data in the file in an array format, but it makes updating more complicated. Is there some way I can read from the file like I am now, and send it to the array without that extra black value being put out?

sp0rk

Ok, let's build the array from your titles-file, then. It's easily done:

<?php
$fh = fopen ('titles', 'r');
$contents = fread($fh, filesize('titles'));
fclose ($fh);

$titlearray = explode("\n", $contents);

srand((float)microtime() * 10000000);
$key = array_rand($titlearray, 1);

print("<TITLE>" . $titlearray[$key] . "</TITLE>\n");
?>

I like simple code like this but you could of course read a specific random line too using PHP, but this will work just as well provided the titles-file doesn't grow ridiculously large. =)

rebelo

sp0rk: I tried several variations of your recommendation, and even when doing it identically, I still get that random "untitled"...I just can't figure this thing out...

rebelo

Oops, I missed the srand line. However, once I put that line in, I always get the same title now. No randomness, just the first entry in the titles files every time.

sp0rk

The end-of-line character differs between our computers, so explode fails. I use windows as my main development platform and I can see from the files on website that you use some flavour of unix. Should have thought about that one...

Time to get rid of explode, then. This variant should work on any system under the sun. Funny how the simple things can be tricky at times.

<?php
$fh = fopen ('titles', 'r');
while(!feof($fh)) {
$titlearray[] = fgets($fh, 4096);
}
fclose($fh);

srand((float)microtime() * 10000000);
$key = array_rand($titlearray, 1);

print("<TITLE>" . $titlearray[$key] . "</TITLE>\n");
?>

rebelo

Thanks alot for your help sp0rk. Yes, I develop on Slackware and the server I am hosted on is a Redhat variant.

rebelo

Well, I thought this idea looked like the cleanest way to do it. So, again, I copied it all and reproduced it exactly like you said, and still I get a third, empty variable randomly. I wonder if perhaps it's a problem where, when the file hits EOF, it's not seeing the EOF until it fgets another string, which picks up the EOF and then kills the loop? It seems reasonable, but I don't know how to fix it. The only workaround that has worked so far was the put the random data information in the included file in php formatting, so each line reads:

--- testdata.php ---
<? $string_array[] = "this is a sample"; ?>
<? $string_array[] = "this is another"; ?>
--- end output ---

That works. The reason I used php tags on ever line is so that when I use the form to submit new lines to the file, I don't have to work about killing the ?> tag at the end of the file, I can just setup my form to write the whole piece of php code and save myself hassle.

So, in closing, that solution works, but I really like your ideas better. If only I could kill that dead variable!

rebelo

Well, it would have been nice to make the thing do it right, but I have a workaround to use your idea: array_pop($title_array); voila! the empty trailing array is now a thing of memory.