PHP display random n images from directory - php

Question

I want to display random n number of images from a folder. Currently i am using this script to display images
<?php
$dir = './images/gallery/';
foreach(glob($dir.'*.jpg') as $file) { ?>
<div class="item"><img src="<?php=$file;?>"></div>
<?php } ?>
I want only 10 (or n number) images, that too randomly. How to do this?

Answer 1

The shuffle() method will put the elements of a given array in a random order:
<?php
$dir = './images/gallery/';
function displayImgs($dir, $n=10){
$files = glob($dir.'*.jpg');
shuffle($files);
$files = array_slice($files, 0, $n);
foreach($files as $file) { ?>
<div class="item"><img src="<?php=$file;?>"></div>
<?php }
} ?>
Usage:
displayImgs("/dir/temp/path", 20);

Answer 2

Well, this might be overkill, but you can also use a directory iterator and some randomness to achieve this. I used a modified version of the random numbers generation function from this answer.
make sure that the path you give to the function is relative to the directory in which the script resides, with a slash at the beginning. The __DIR__ constants will not change would you happen to call this script from different places in your file hierarchy.
<?php
function randomImages($path,$n) {
$dir = new DirectoryIterator(__DIR__. $path);
// we need to know how many images we can range on
// but we do not want the two special files . and ..
$count = iterator_count($dir) - 2;
// slightly modified function to create an array containing n random position
// within our range
$positionsArray = UniqueRandomNumbersWithinRange(0,$count-1,$n);
$i = 0;
foreach ($dir as $file) {
// those super files seldom make good images
if ($file->getFilename() === '.' || $file->getFilename() === '..') continue;
if (isset($positionsArray[$i])) echo '<div class="item"><img src="'.$file->getPathname().'"></div>';
$i++;
// change the count after the check of the filename,
// because otherwise you might overflow
}
}
function UniqueRandomNumbersWithinRange($min, $max, $quantity) {
$numbers = range($min, $max);
shuffle($numbers);
return array_flip(array_slice($numbers, 0, $quantity));
}

Answer 3

Let us first create a array and push some random numbers into it. And as per you let $n be 10.
$n = 10;
$arr = array();
for($i = 1; $i <= $n; $i++){
/* Where $n is the limit */
$rand = rand($n);
array_push($arr, $rand);
}
So now we have an array containing the random digits and now we have to echo out the images by iterating over the array:
foreach($arr as $image){
$intToStr = (string) $image;
foreach(glob($dir. $intToStr . '.jpg') as $file){
echo "<div class='item'>$file</div>";
}
}
This would echo out your images.