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Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:15:10 +0100 (BST)
Reply-To: Andrew Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>
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Subject: [proposal + patch] array_pick() function
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrew Faulds)

 Hi there,

This is a small function, called array_pick(), which takes one argument
($array), an array, and returns the value of a random item.

Much of its usefulness stems from the new short array syntax, which lets you do
array_pick(["funlogo.png", "coollogo.jpg", "kittens.gif"]);, instead of $a =
array("funlogo.png", "coollogo.jpg", "kittens.gif"); $a = $a[array_rand($a)];
It's also useful for picking a random value out of a none-literal array. For
instance today it would have been handy for my markov chain propaganda generator
(not the most practical example, I realise.)

However, of course, PHP already has array_rand(), and an equivalent function
could be implemented in 3 lines of code. The reason I'd like it added to PHP
though is largely convenience. It's in at least two other languages I use
(Python's random.choice(), Game Maker/GML's choose()) and I use it quite often
in different projects (just today I've needed it 4 times in PHP code). It's also
the logical counterpart to array_rand(), which gets a random key, not a random
value, so it would help API completeness. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only
person who wants to fetch a random array value, not a random array key, too.
It's useful also in the scenario where you want a random value of nested arrays
($array['thing']['foo']).

Enough rambling, here's a pull request. https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/142
<https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/142>

--
Andrew Faulds
http://ajf.me/