I want to scramble an array in PHP

Question

I want PHP to randomly create a multi-dimensional array by picking a vast amount of items out of predefined lists for n times, but never with 2 times the same.

Let me put that to human words in a real-life example: i want to write a list of vegetables and meat and i want php to make a menu for me, with every day something else then yesterday.

I tried and all i got was the scrambling but there were always doubles :s

Answer 1

Try the shuffle function http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.shuffle.php

Answer 2

Random != unique

You need to either:

a) create a list containing every possible combination and then randomly select and remove one

or

b) store your results so your random selection can be compared to previous selections.

Answer 3

Use either array_rand() or shuffle().