RANDOM ARRANGEMENT USING ARRAY

tinood

Hello PHP Master, I need your help. I want to create a random arrangement of the options. This will be the option answers for the given question.
Below is my code, can you please check my code and help me correct it.

$selectquestions = mysql_query("select * from tblquestions where ndex = '1'",$conn);
while ($dataquestion = mysql_fetch_array($selectquestions)){
$optiona = $dataquestion['fldoptiona'];
$optionb = $dataquestion['fldoptionb'];
$optionc = $dataquestion['fldoptionc'];
$optiond = $dataquestion['fldoptiond'];
}
this code is not working --> $characters = array($optiona,$optionb,$optionc,$optiond);

but if i will put directly the value like this --> $characters = array("sample option A","sample option B","sample option C","sample option D");
it works fine.

........ this part here below is working fine........
$keys = array();
while(count($keys) < 7) {
$x = mt_rand(0, count($characters)-1);
if(!in_array($x, $keys)) {
$keys[] = $x;
}
}
foreach($keys as $key){
$random_chars .= $characters[$key].'<br>';
}
echo $random_chars;
...........................................................................

Guys I really need your help about this.... Thanks in advance... God Bless you all...

sfullman

see an obvious problem in your while loop - your geometry is wrong. You are effectively overwriting all the fetches with the last one. Shouldn't it be more like this:

$selectquestions = mysql_query("select * from tblquestions where ndex = '1'",$conn);
$getRow=rand(0, mysql_num_rows($selectquestions)-1);

$i=0;
while ($dataquestion = mysql_fetch_array($selectquestions)){
   if($i!==$getRow)continue;

  $optiona = $dataquestion['fldoptiona'];
  $optionb = $dataquestion['fldoptionb'];
  $optionc = $dataquestion['fldoptionc'];
  $optiond = $dataquestion['fldoptiond'];
  break;
}

even that seems clumsy and one guy on the forum would kill me for mentioning using ORDER BY RAND() so don't do that 🙂 however you are by my code selecting 4 options (horizontal) from a random row (vertical).

Anyway, your query was overwriting otion a-d for each row which can't be useful to you..

tinood

Hi sfullman, thanx for sharing with me your knowledge.
I found out the problem. The problem is not really on the query which I thought.
It's in the second part of my coding when i'm creating the random arrangement.

Since we have only four option in the array. Which is optiona to optiond the count should not be more than 4.
So i changed the condition in this part "while(count($keys) < 7)" to "while(count($keys) < 4)".

$keys = array();
while(count($keys) < 4) {
$x = mt_rand(0, count($characters)-1);
if(!in_array($x, $keys)) {
$keys[] = $x;
}
}
foreach($keys as $key){
$random_chars .= $characters[$key].'<br>';
}

Now my code is working fine but thanks for sharing me your knowldege. I really appreciate that.

laserlight

I am little confused, but humour me: why would [man]shuffle/man not work for you?

tinood

laserlight;10960038 wrote:
I am little confused, but humour me: why would [man]shuffle/man not work for you?

Thanks for your suggestion laserlight i'll put that in mind.

Now I face another problem, but I'm not sure if I will post it here or not because this problem is still connected with this code. Just inform me guys if I need to create another thread for this.

Here's the problem, I customized my code, I add a radio button in each option but every time I tried to refresh the page, the options has been rearranged but the selected radio remain on same line.
Is there anyway, that if I will refresh the page, the selected radio button will follow as well to the new random arrangement of the selected option.

I hope you understand me... LOL... But I really need your help.
Here's my sample code below:

<?
$selectquestions = mysql_query("select * from tblquestions where ndex = '1'",$conn);
while ($dataquestion = mysql_fetch_array($selectquestions)){
$optiona = '<input type="radio" value="A" name="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'" id="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'A">'.$dataquestion['fldoptiona'];
$optionb = '<input type="radio" value="B" name="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'" id="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'B">'.$dataquestion['fldoptionb'];
$optionc = '<input type="radio" value="C" name="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'" id="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'C">'.$dataquestion['fldoptionc'];
$optiond = '<input type="radio" value="D" name="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'" id="answers'.$ndexanswerstoquestion.'D">'.$dataquestion['fldoptiond'];
}
$characters = array($optiona,$optionb,$optionc,$optiond);
while(count($keys) < 4) {
    $x = mt_rand(0, count($characters)-1);
    if(!in_array($x, $keys)) {
       $keys[] = $x;
    }
}

foreach($keys as $key){
   $random_chars .= $characters[$key].'<br>';
}
?>

Thanks in advance pro php masters!