Select random file from directory

Question

I'm trying to make a site where users can submit photos, and then randomly view others photos one by one on another page. I have a directory called "uploads" where the pictures are submitted. I'm having trouble reading the pictures from the file. I just want to randomly select a picture from the directory uploads and have it displayed on the page. Any suggestions appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use glob to get all files in a directory, and then take a random element from that array. A function like this would do it for you:

function random_pic($dir = 'uploads')
{
    $files = glob($dir . '/*.*');
    $file = array_rand($files);
    return $files[$file];
}

Answer 2

I've turned it a little to get more than one random file from a directory using array.

<?php

function random_pic($dir)
{
 $files = glob($dir . '/*.jpg');
 $rand_keys = array_rand($files, 3);
 return array($files[$rand_keys[0]], $files[$rand_keys[1]], $files[$rand_keys[2]]);
}

// Calling function

list($file_1,$file_2,$file_3)= random_pic("images"); 

?>

You can also use loop to get values.

Answer 3

This single line of code displays one random image from the target directory.

<img src="/images/image_<?php $random = rand(1,127); echo $random; ?>.png" />

Target directory: /images/

Image prefix: image_

Number of images in directory: 127

https://perishablepress.com/drop-dead-easy-random-images-via-php/

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Drawbacks

• images must be named sequentially (eg image_1.png, image_2.png, image_3.png, etc).

• you need to know how many images are in the directory in advance.

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Alternatives

Perhaps there's a simple way to make this work with arbitrary image-names and file-count, so you don't have to rename or count your files.

Untested ideas:

• <img src=<?php $dir='/images/'; echo $dir . array_rand(glob($dir . '*.jpg')); ?> />

• shuffle()

• scanDir() with rand(1,scanDir.length)

Answer 4

Or you can use opendir() instead of glob() because it's faster