How can I output 2 random values from an array? - php

Question

I'm trying to make a simple PHP script for school. I need to output 2 random students from the array $leerlingen (Leerlingen = students).
It work's fine when I use echo $leerlingen within the foreach loop, but when I use the return statement it stops executing, because when return is used, it ends the function.
Code:
$leerlingen = array("tobias", "hasna", "aukje", "fred", "sep", "koen", "wahed", "anna", "jackie", "rashida", "winston", "sammy", "manon", "ben", "karim", "bart", "lisa", "lieke");
shuffle($leerlingen);
function maakGroepjes($leerlingen) {
$begin = 1;
foreach ($leerlingen as $leerling) {
if ($begin <= 2) {
echo $leerling;
$begin++;
}
}
}
echo maakGroepjes($leerlingen);
Can anyone tell me how to solve this problem?

Answer 1

You can return only one value inside a function, in this case is an array. I assume that the array have at least two values.
<?php
$leerlingen = array(
"tobias", "hasna", "aukje", "fred", "sep", "koen", "wahed", "anna", "jackie", "rashida", "winston", "sammy", "manon", "ben", "karim", "bart", "lisa", "lieke"
);
shuffle($leerlingen);
function maakGroepjes($leerlingen) {
//your result array
$result = array();
//Picking 2 random entries out of an array to $keys
$keys = array_rand($leerlingen, 2);
//Returning the array with two values
return array($leerlingen[$keys[0]], $leerlingen[$keys[1]]);
}
//assign the values to the vars
list($one, $two) = maakGroepjes($leerlingen);
//printing
echo $one . "<br>\n";
echo $two . "<br>\n";
?>

Answer 2

array_rand and other functions (rand) that rely on libc have a bad standard distribution. I'd always recommend using mt_rand() if you need it to be equally distributed, otherwise some entries will be heavily favored.
This is a good easy replacement for numerical arrays:
function array_mt_rand($array) {
return $array[ mt_rand( 0, count($array)-1 ) ];
}
$one = array_mt_rand($array);
$two = array_mt_rand($array);
You may need some extra checks if you have a small array and always want two distinct values though.

Answer 3

You could always try something like this.
function maakGroepjes($leerlingen) {
do {
$first_student = array_rand($leerlingen);
$second_student = array_rand($leerlingen);
} while ($leerlingen[$first_student] == $leerlingen[$second_student]);
return [$leerlingen[$first_studen], $leerlingen[$second_student]];
}
Which returns this.
Array
(
[0] => manon
[1] => winston
)
Also, the difference between a function printing/echo'ing information and returning information is pretty big.
You can't assign a variable to the echo statement inside of a function, whereas you could assign a variable to the return statement.

Answer 4

I would approach this a little differently.
function maakGroepjes($leerlingen) {
shuffle($leerlingen); // randomize the list of students
return array_chunk($leerlingen, 2); // break in into groups of two and return it
}
Then with
$groepjes = maakGroepjes($leerlingen);
you can generate all of the groups at once. No worries about repetition. This way if you need multiple groups, you can loop over the list of groups. If you really only need one group of two, then that will be
$groepjes[0];
which you can ouptut however you like. A very simple example:
foreach ($groepjes[0] as $student) echo "$student<br>";

Answer 5

Try this:
if ($begin <= 2) {
echo $leerling;
$begin++;
} else {
return
}
What this does is: every time through the loop, it looks at $begin. If it's less than or equal to two, it echoes that student and increments $begin. Otherwise, if it's greater than two, it returns, ending the function (and thus, the loop).
A perhaps better way to do it would be to just look at the ordinal directly:
foreach ($leerlingen as $ord => $leerling) {
echo $leerling;
if ($ord == 1) return;
}
Note the syntax in the loop definition. The "old =>" part sets the ordinal value as a variable as you loop through, letting you see which entry in the array you are currently on. So, this just loops through printing students. When it has printed the second student (remember, arrays are counted 0, 1, 2...) it returns.
Also, you probably don't want to echo maakGroepjes(). That function is what is echoing the student names. You probably don't want to echo the function result unless the function compiles the names into a string and returns the string or something.