How would you pick a random piece of text from a text file and store it in a variable?

: How would you pick a random piece of text from a text file and store it in a variable?
:
:
This is how I would do it... roughly.
Let's say that the file looks like this:
foo
bar

<?php
$fopened = fopen(file, r); //Open the file... just for reading.
$string = fread(fopened); //Read it into a string.
$exploded = explode("/r/n", $string); //Separate it by newline into an array.
$rand = rand(0, count($exploded)); //Randomize a number between 0 and the number of elements of the array.
echo "The random word is:/n". $exploded[$rand]; // Echo element $rand of array $exploded
fclose(file); //Close it.
?>

That's how I would do it. It would either echo "foo" or "bar." Now, if you wanted to separate the words by spaces, not new lines, you would just change the "/r/n" to " ".

: : How would you pick a random piece of text from a text file and store it in a variable?
: :
: :
: This is how I would do it... roughly.
: Let's say that the file looks like this:
: foo
: bar
:

<?php
: $fopened = fopen(file, r); //Open the file... just for reading.
: $string = fread(fopened); //Read it into a string.
: $exploded = explode("/r/n", $string); //Separate it by newline into an array.
: $rand = rand(0, count($exploded)); //Randomize a number between 0 and the number of elements of the array.
: echo "The random word is:/n". $exploded[$rand]; // Echo element $rand of array $exploded
: fclose(file); //Close it.
: ?>
: 

: That's how I would do it. It would either echo "foo" or "bar." Now, if you wanted to separate the words by spaces, not new lines, you would just change the "/r/n" to " ".
:


makes sense to me, only one problem - i dont know how to tell it *what* file to open :P

<?php
$fopened = fopen(file, r); //Open the file... just for reading.
$string = fread($fopened); //Read it into a string.
$exploded = explode("/r/n", $string); //Separate it by newline into an array.
$rand = rand(0, count($exploded)); //Randomize a number between 0 and the number of elements of the array.
echo "The random word is:/n". $exploded[$rand]; // Echo element $rand of array $exploded
fclose(file); //Close it.
?>

: makes sense to me, only one problem - i dont know how to tell it *what* file to open :P

Replace the word "file" in blue above with the path of the text file you want to look through.

This message was edited by GameFreak7744 at 2004-6-23 22:6:25

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i'm getting some big bad errors that i cant fix:

Warning: Wrong parameter count for fread() in /home/public2/public_html/indexframe.php on line 25
""
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/public2/public_html/indexframe.php on line 29

any ideas?

EDIT: RE-the second error, um, should it be 'fclose($fopened)' rather than the file path?

the parameters of fopen are (string filename,string mode)
so it's
'file',not file
'r',not r
you can also use array_rand function:

echo"The random word is:".$exploded[array_rand($exploded)];

This message was edited by GameFreak7744 at 2004-6-25 1:56:42

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: the parameters of fopen are (string filename,string mode)
: so it's
: 'file',not file
: 'r',not r
: you can also use array_rand function:

echo"The random word is:".$exploded[array_rand($exploded)];

:

yeah. i can also use 'file_get_contents' rather than 'fopen' and then 'fread'

EDIT:
I also find it better to use '#' insted of next line or space. however (no matter which kind i use) when it shows the last on in the file it adds a space to the end of it, any ideas how to remove this.