How to randomize an array of objects in PHP? - php

Question

I have this example of an array of objects and I need to randomize it each time I do a foreach loop.
Looks like shuffle works only on arrays.
One thing is that I cant convert this into an array, because then it will become a STD object which I can't use, because of the way my mapper works.
array(48) {
[0] => object(Friends_Model_Friends)#142 (4) {
["_id":protected] => NULL
["_tal":protected] => object(stdClass)#194 (3) {
["thumb"] => object(stdClass)#196 (6) {
["id"] => string(8) "10884697"
["type"] => string(1) "2"
["gallery"] => string(1) "1"
}
}
["_friend":protected] => string(7) "3492149"
["_dependent_table":protected] => NULL
}
[1] => object(Friends_Model_Friends)#195 (4) {
["_id":protected] => NULL
["_tal":protected] => object(stdClass)#143 (3) {
["thumb"] => object(stdClass)#202 (6) {
["id"] => string(8) "11160632"
["type"] => string(1) "2"
["gallery"] => string(1) "1"
}
}
["_friend":protected] => string(7) "3301541"
["_dependent_table":protected] => NULL
}
....
Any ideas on shuffling this?
edit: Zend_Debug::dump(shuffle($object)); returns bool(true)

Answer 1

<?php
$my_array;
echo '<pre>'; print_r($my_array); echo '</pre>';
shuffle ($my_array);
echo '<pre>'; print_r($my_array); echo '</pre>';
?>
Try this code

Answer 2

But the objects are in an array, not another object so you can use shuffle...

Answer 3

Shuffle always returns a boolean:
bool shuffle ( array &$array )
So you can't return it like
return shuffle( $myAwesomeArray );
This is what I just did and I wondered why it didn't give anything back, as you're probably expecting your shuffled array back.
You just have to call it like this
shuffle( $myAwesomeArray );
return $myAwesomeArray;
And all should work just fine.