CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpxmlrandomshuffle
jagb
jagb

Reputation: 922

rand() shuffle xml output

I created a XML file with a number of items like the example below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <id>http://www.example.com/index.php?pagina=video-categories</id>
  <title><![CDATA[Example.com Categories RSS]]></title>
  <author>
  <name>Example.com</name>
  <email>[email protected]</email>
  </author>
  <updated></updated>
  <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.example.com/categories"/>
  <subtitle><![CDATA[HQ example videos in any category]]></subtitle>
  <rights>Copyrights reserved. Feel free to use the embed function.</rights>
    <item>
    <categoryname><![CDATA[100 Latest Videos]]></categoryname>
    <shortcategoryname><![CDATA[100 New Sex Clips]]></shortcategoryname>
    <categoryurl>http://www.example.com/1.html</categoryurl>
    <categoryimage>http://www.example.com/12347.jpg</categoryimage>
    </item>
    <item>
    <categoryname><![CDATA[100 Latest Videos]]></categoryname>
    <shortcategoryname><![CDATA[100 New Sex Clips]]></shortcategoryname>
    <categoryurl>http://www.example.com/2.html</categoryurl>
    <categoryimage>http://www.example.com/12346.jpg</categoryimage>
    </item>
    <item>
    <categoryname><![CDATA[100 Latest Videos]]></categoryname>
    <shortcategoryname><![CDATA[100 New Sex Clips]]></shortcategoryname>
    <categoryurl>http://www.example.com/3.html</categoryurl>
    <categoryimage>http://www.example.com/12345.jpg</categoryimage>
    </item>
    ... and more items ...
    </feed>

I have the following code with as output all links from the XML file

     <?php
     $html = ""; // var full of emptyness
     $url = "http://www.example.com/categories.xml";
     $xml = simplexml_load_file($url);
     for($i = 0; $i < 35; $i++){ // Number of category here, I use a lower number at this moment... 
     $categoryname = $xml->item[$i]->categoryname;
     $shortcategoryname = $xml->item[$i]->shortcategoryname;
     $categoryurl = $xml->item[$i]->categoryurl;
     $html .= '<a class="purplewidebutton" href="' . $categoryurl . '" title="' . $categoryname . '">' . $shortcategoryname . '</a>';
     }
     echo $html;
     ?>

I'd like to show only 6 links and make their position radom from the XML feed. I'd like to have random links from the xml items. what should I add or change and should I use rand() or shuffle() to echo the 6 random links?

The php code is what I'm using at this moment to echo some links but it's not random...

Upvotes: 1

Views: 626

Answers (1)

AbraCadaver
AbraCadaver

Reputation: 78994

$xml->item is an array, so shuffle it and then get the first 6, something like:

shuffle($xml->item);

foreach(array_slice($xml->item, 0, 6) as $item) {
    $categoryname = $item->categoryname;
    $shortcategoryname = $item->shortcategoryname;
    $categoryurl = $item->categoryurl;
    $html .= '<a class="purplewidebutton" href="' . $categoryurl . '" title="' . $categoryname . '">' . $shortcategoryname . '</a>';
}
echo $html;

Or with current code you could store the HTML in an array in the loop:

$html[] = '<a class="purplewidebutton" href="' . $categoryurl . '" title="' . $categoryname . '">' . $shortcategoryname . '</a>';

And after the loop:

shuffle($html);
echo implode("\n", array_slice($html, 0, 6));

Upvotes: 1

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