Generating a random number and adding to an HTML argument's string

Question

I'm trying to make a header image change randomly based on a random number being chosen. This is the code I have right now, and it requires the entire tag.

<img src="http://www.example.com/site_gfx/headers/header_<?php echo(rand(1,7)); ?>.png" width="980" height="230" alt="Example Site" />

Is there any reason it would be dying like it is? Where the <?php echo part is is the PHP code i'm using to generate the random number, and I'd like to include that into the string for the img src

Answer 1

Figured it out. The problem is I didn't realize the <?php area was running within an echo command (stupid little oversight on my part). But modifying the echo statement that I was working with fixed it.

Thanks for the pointers, everyone.

Answer 2

This would be a better approach to doing this

<?php
 $number = rand(1,7);
 echo '<img src="http://www.example.com/site_gfx/headers/header_' . $number . 'png" width="980" height="230" alt="Example Site" />'
?>

There may be an issue with using the <?php tag inside of another tag.

Answer 3

Any reason you want to do this with PHP, it would probably be easier with javascript. try to remove the rand(1,7) from the bracket so as to have:

echo rand(1,7)

Answer 4

How's it dying? I'd try print or echo without parentheses, as I haven't seen echo() used before:

print():

<?php print(rand(1,7)); ?>

echo:

<?php echo rand(1,7); ?>