Getting a random row from array...?

Channel5

2 questions:

1 ) After pulling an RSS feed into an array, how would I randomly select a row or entry?

2 ) What if I want to get the 3 most recent rows or entries from an array, but leave off the very newest? So perhaps the 4 newest, minus the latest, equally 3.

dagon

1 echo $foo[array_rand($foo)];

perhaps? you cant code for perhaps, you have to decide first.

NogDog

Use [man]array_slice/man:
```
$slice = array_slice($array, -4, 3);
```

Channel5

Thanks NogDog, just what I needed to learn.

Also, is there a function that would accomplish the same thing if I were to pull the data from a MySQL database instead of an array?

NogDog

You could invert the order, use a LIMIT to get the desired number of rows including an offset, then invert the order again by using a sub-query:

SELECT * 
  FROM (
    SELECT * 
      FROM `table` 
      ORDER BY `some_field` DESC 
      LIMIT 1,3
  ) AS `tmp`
  ORDER BY `some_field` ASC