How do you make a function read form a txt file and store random lines in a variable?

Question

How do you make a function read form a txt file and store random lines in a variable? It will be run over and over in a foreach loop. The language is PHP.

Im a new coder so I don't know things like this off the top of my head.

Answer 1

One way to do it:

$contents = file('myfile.txt');
shuffle($contents);
array_splice($contents, 5);

var_dump($contents);

1. Reads the whole file into an array
2. Shuffles the array
3. Cuts the array off after 5 elements

Now you have an array of 5 randomly chosen strings.

This method simple, but rather inefficient if the file is very big.

Answer 2

// read the file
$file = file_get_contents( $path );

// convert to array of lines (assuming \n is delimiter)
$lines = explode( "\n" , $file );

// put lines in random order
shuffle( $lines );

// grab the first few lines or whatever you need
$random_lines = array_slice( $lines , 0 , 10 );

Answer 3

$file = file( $path );
shuffle( $file );
$random_lines = array_slice( $lines , 0 , 20 ); #first 20 lines