PHP - Displaying random output more than once, prevent duplicate - php

Question

I have the following code that I am using to randomly display PHP widgets from a folder:
<?php
function random_widget($dir = 'wp-content/themes/zonza/elements')
{
$files = glob($dir . '/*.*');
$file = array_rand($files);
return $files[$file];
}
?>
<?php include random_widget();?>
<?php include random_widget();?>
<?php include random_widget();?>
random_widget(); outputs a URL, which I then use in the include function to display the widget.
The code randomly chooses between 6 php files and displays one randomly. I include it 3 times to get 3 widgets. However, I get the same widget displayed more than once sometimes.
What can I do to modify the code to prevent this from happening?

Answer 1

Try this:
<?php
function random_widget($dir = 'wp-content/themes/zonza/elements')
{
static $files = false;
if(!$files) $files=glob($dir . '/*.*');
$key = array_rand($files);
$file=$files[$key];
unset($files[$key]);
return $file;
}
?>
It works by removing the file returned from $files, and maintaining $files over multiple function calls (it only globs() on the first time you call the function)

Answer 2

Declare files at the beginning of the page $files = glob($dir . '/*.*');
In random_widget, do this unset($files[$file]) after you pull the value.

Answer 3

array_rand takes a number $num_req as an optional second parameter which specifies the number of entries you want to pick. So add this parameter to random_widget, pass it to array_rand to get an array of keys instead of a single key, return the array of files, and then iterate over this array to include the widgets (instead of calling random_widget three times).
<?php
function random_widget($num_req, $dir = 'wp-content/themes/zonza/elements')
{
$files = glob($dir . '/*.*');
$keys = array_rand($files, $num_req);
$chosen = array();
foreach($keys as $key) {
$chosen[] = $files[$key];
}
return $chosen;
}
$widgets = random_widget(3);
foreach($widgets as $widget) {
include $widget;
}
?>
An advantage of this solution over the ones proposed in the other answers is that it is stateless: you can reuse the function in different contexts as much as you want.
Source: http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-rand.php