Selecting an uncommented line from a text file - php

Question

I have a text file full of proxy servers. Some are commented with a # at the beginning and should not be used. I have tried to do this using the code below, but it is still picking commented lines. Where am I going wrong?
function getProxy()
{
$file = file('proxy.txt',FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);
$line = $file[array_rand($file)];
if (strpos($line,'#') !== FALSE) { getProxy(); }
return $line;
}
Ideally I think the code should probably do some form of while loop until it picks a proxy (at random) which does not have a # at the beginning - rather than calling the function each time and reloading the file.
Help!

Answer 1

Actually, the best way to handle the problem is to remove any line that is commented, and only then pick a random result.
Otherwise you might have a very bad luck streak or a file with thousands of commented lines and one or two active, and will wait for hours to have the randomness pick the one line that is valid.
function getProxy()
{
$file = file('proxy.txt', FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);
foreach ($file as $key => $line) {
if (strpos(ltrim($line), "#") === 0) {
unset($file[$key]);
}
}
$line = $file[array_rand($file)];
return $line;
}
You can use array_filter() instead, like this:
$file = array_filter($file, function($value){return !(strpos(ltrim($value), "#") === 0);});

Answer 2

true - loop is better here:
function getProxy()
{
$file = file('proxy.txt',FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);
do {
$line = $file[array_rand($file)];
} while(strpos($line,'#') !== FALSE);
return $line;
}
you must also add some additional condition - if file have only commented lines it will now create infinite loop, so better idea would be:
function getProxy()
{
$maxChecks=100;
$i=0;
$file = file('proxy.txt',FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);
do {
$line = $file[array_rand($file)];
if($i++>$maxChecks) break;
} while(strpos($line,'#') !== FALSE);
if($i>$maxChecks)
return false;
return $line;
}