how to include a file randomly without listing the file?

marcnyc

Hello, PHP beginner MarcNYC has a question for you! ;-)

How can I tell my PHP file to include any one of the INC files that I have in a specific folder at random?

I have one PHP file and a folder with 10 INC files and I want the PHP file to include four of the 10 INC files randomly everytime the PHP page is loaded...

I saw that this is possible when I installed Nuke (it has a folder called blocks where all the files would be called "block-something.inc", in other words their names would all start with "block-" and would all end with ".inc")... I looked at Nuke's code but I immediately realized how much of a beginner I am :-(

Before you answer this question of mine I'd like you to understand that I am not looking for a solution where I have to add the name of all the INC files in my folder into an array (I already have that)... I wanna be able to add files to the include folder and just see them appear at random on my PHP file without having to update a file or an array with the name of the new file I have just added...

Any help greatly apprecaited.
Marc

daveyboy

<?php

if ( $dir = @opendir('./')){
	while($file = readdir($dir)){
		if (substr($file, 0, 8) == "include-" and substr($file, -4) == ".php"){
			echo "including $file<br>";
			include $file;
		}
	}
}
?>

This should do the trick, at least until [man]glob/man finds its way out of CVS. That's the real man for the job.

marcnyc

I am afraid that piece of code doesn't work... I tried it but nothing appears at all... the page comes back blank, no included files no error or warning messages, nothing...

If you have a different solution or if you made a mistake in the code please let me know...

also when you post again, if you could tell me where to change the folder path (I tried @opendir($DOCUMENT_ROOT.'/myfolder')){ but that didn't change anything)and where to change the number of includes it would be great (unless of course this code was intended to include just one file, meaning that if I want to include more files at random on a page I'll have to just copy the code n times).

Mce

What he suggested should do close to what you're wanting, but the files in the directory you want to include MUST be named in the sample he gave include-*.php
Also to get random includes instead of all this should be changed to:

<?php

if ( $dir = @opendir('./')){
	while($file = readdir($dir)){
		if (substr($file, 0, 8) == "include-" and substr($file, -4) == ".php") {
                        array_push($file_ara,$file);
                        srand ((float) microtime() * 10000000);
                        $rnd_key = array_rand($file_ara);
			echo "including $file_ara[$rnd_key]<br>";
			include $file_ara[$rnd_key];
		}
	}
}
?>

This way you don't have to manually populate the array as it's built from the directory listing.

Hope this helps...

-Mce

Originally posted by daveyboy
<?php

if ( $dir = @opendir('./')){
	while($file = readdir($dir)){
		if (substr($file, 0, 8) == "include-" and substr($file, -4) == ".php"){
			echo "including $file<br>";
			include $file;
		}
	}
}
?>
This should do the trick, at least until [man]glob/man finds its way out of CVS. That's the real man for the job. [/B]

marcnyc

It just simply doesn't work but at least now I get some errors to work on instead of a blank page...

I created a file called: test.php3 whose content looks like this:

<html>
<head>
<title>CHAIN D.L.K. | TEST</title>
<link rel="STYLESHEET" type="text/css" href="/chaindlk.css">
</head>
<body>
<?php

if ( $dir = @opendir('./')){
    while($file = readdir($dir)){
        if (substr($file, 0, 8) == "include-" and substr($file, -4) == ".php") {
                        array_push($file_ara,$file);
                        srand ((float) microtime() * 10000000);
                        $rnd_key = array_rand($file_ara);
            echo "including $file_ara[$rnd_key]<br>";
            include $file_ara[$rnd_key];
        }
    }
}
?>

</body>
</html>

The I have created 5 files whose names start with include- and end with .php.

I have put test.php3 in the same folder of the 5 include files and I have got the following error messages:

Warning: First argument to array_push() needs to be an array in /usr/local/server/httpdocs/sidemenus/test.php3 on line 13