Calculating Median of an array in PHP - php

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to calculate the median of an array of randomly generated numbers. I have the array all set up, but I'm having trouble putting together a function for the calcuation.
This is what I have so far:
//array
$lessFifty = array();
$moreFifty = array();
//number generation
for ($i = 0; $i<=30; $i++) {
$number = rand(0, 100);
//Sorting <50>
if ($number < 50 ) {
$lessFifty[] = $number;
} else {
$moreFifty[] = $number;
}
}
echo print_r($lessFifty);
echo "<br>" ;
echo print_r($moreFifty);
//Average
echo "<p> Average of values less than fifty: </p>";
print array_sum($lessFifty) / count($lessFifty) ;
echo "<p> Average of values greater than fifty: </p>" ;
print array_sum($moreFifty) / count($moreFifty) ;
//Median
$func = function (median ($array, $output = $median)){
if(!is_array($array)){
return FALSE;
}else{
switch($output){
rsort($array);
$middle = round(count($array) 2);
$total = $array[$middle-1];
break;
return $total;
}
}
echo $func ;
I'm pretty sure that I'm doing this median section completely wrong. I'm just learning and its proving to be a challenge.

Answer 1

Be careful about how you write your for() loop. If you want 30 entries, then you should not use <= or you will end up with 31 because $i starts with 0.
Build an array of the random numbers, then sort them.
Then determine if you have a central entry (odd array length) or if you need to average the middle two entries (even array length).
Here is a modern implementation of a median method posted in 2022 on CodeReview.
Code: (Demo)
$limit = 30; // how many random numbers do you want? 30 or 31?
for ($i = 0; $i < $limit; ++$i) {
$numbers[] = rand(0, 100);
}
var_export($numbers);
//echo "\n---\nAverage: " , array_sum($numbers) / $limit;
echo "\n---\n";
sort($numbers);
$count = sizeof($numbers); // cache the count
$index = floor($count/2); // cache the index
if (!$count) {
echo "no values";
} elseif ($count & 1) { // count is odd
echo $numbers[$index];
} else { // count is even
echo ($numbers[$index-1] + $numbers[$index]) / 2;
}
Possible Output:
array (
0 => 27,
1 => 24,
2 => 84,
3 => 43,
4 => 8,
5 => 51,
6 => 60,
7 => 86,
8 => 9,
9 => 48,
10 => 67,
11 => 20,
12 => 44,
13 => 85,
14 => 6,
15 => 63,
16 => 41,
17 => 32,
18 => 64,
19 => 73,
20 => 43,
21 => 24,
22 => 15,
23 => 19,
24 => 9,
25 => 93,
26 => 88,
27 => 77,
28 => 11,
29 => 54,
)
---
43.5
After sorting, elements [14] and [15] hold 43 and 44 respectively. The average of these "middle two" values is how the result is determined. (Hardcoded numbers demo)
If you want a short, inflexible, hardcoded snippet, then you can use 30 and 14 and 15 as your predetermined size and indexes.
for ($i = 0; $i < 30; ++$i) {
$numbers[] = rand(0, 100);
}
sort($numbers);
echo ($numbers[14] + $numbers[15]) / 2;