recursive function failed! please help!

[dc2698]

Hi I have a MySQL table that contains records of numbers i.e. products_num 1, products_num 2 now in the test table products

I tried to write a recursive function which check a randomly generated number against each products_num for no duplicates:

 
    function gen_rand_products_num() {
        $rand1 = mt_rand(1, 3);                                                                            //rand gen 1, 2, or 3
        $get_all_products_num = mysql_query("select products_num from products");
        $num_of_products_nums = mysql_num_rows($get_all_products_num );

    for ($i=0; $i<$num_of_products_nums; $i++) {                                           //0 to 1 ($num_of_products_nums = 2)
        if (!mysql_data_seek($get_all_products_num , $i)) {
            continue;
        }

        if (!($row1 = mysql_fetch_assoc($get_all_products_num ))) {
            continue;
        }

        if ((int)$row1['products_num'] != (int)$rand1) {
            $rand_products_num = $rand1;
            return $rand_products_num;
        } else {
            gen_rand_products_num();
        }
    }
}

echo gen_rand_products_num();
 

The function above is supposed to return a 3 only, that is not a duplicate of products_num 1 and products_num 2 of the products table.
But it still returns 1 or 2, along with 3. So please help me fix the function! Thanks in advance!

[NogDog]

I think that would be a very inefficient way to do that. I would probably just let the query do the work:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT products_num FROM products ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
$randProductNum = mysql_result($result, 0);

PS: I think the problem you had was that you were not getting and then returning a value on the recursion call.