Need a Script to show a random page

[hairycornflakes]

making a website just now and id like to have a button that when pressed shows up a page at random from a predefined list of pages (predefined by me of course!)

im sure this is a relatively simply php script but im lost when it comes to php!

iv tried searching for it, and there seemed to be a script but the page it was hosted on is now showing as an error

any help much appreciated!

hc

[D-Mac]

You could use the php rand function to generate a random number then use if statements to select the page assigned to each number.

[hairycornflakes]

see that does make sense to me, but putting that into php would just be mindboggling!

the only php iv ever done is renaming .htm files to .php files lol!

cheers for your post though, im gonna have to learn php at some point!

if some1 can provide a quick script that doesnt take them more than a minute to create then please do :-)

hc

[D-Mac]

hmm. how do i display code on here?

[D-Mac]

PHP Code:

<?php
 $pageid =  rand(1, 3);
 if ($pageid == 1){$location = "http://www.google.com";}
 else if ($pageid == 2){$location = "http://www.yahoo.com";}
 else if ($pageid == 3){$location = "http://www.msn.com";}
 echo "<a href=$location>$location</a>";
?>

[tbp]

It's actually pretty easy, as D-Mac said.

Basically the rand($x,$y) command gives you a random number between $x and $y eg rand(1,10) would give you a number between (and including) 1 and 10.

At the simplest level you could use the code:

PHP Code:

$x = number_of_pages;
$page = rand(1,$x);
switch($page){
  case 1:
    header("Location: page1.php");
    break;
  case 2:
    header("Location: page2.php");
    break;
   etc...
} 


You just need to assign the number of pages to $x, and then do a case statement for each number from 1 to $x, and put your page names in the header() command.

This will redirect to the page corresponding to the randomly generated number.

If you have a list of all your pages in the database, with a CMS for example, there is an sql RANDOM command that will pull a random record from a table.

UPDATE: Oops, D-Mac beat me to it lol

[hairycornflakes]

thanks dmac and tbp...

so do i save that code as random.php then make a button that links to random.php?

good work folks!

hc

[D-Mac]

tbp's code would work the way you describe.
if you use mine you could insert it into the page you are linking from, and change the text in the href to a button

[hairycornflakes]

would that page then need to be a php page. because as it stands it is an htm page

im almost finishe dmaking up the wee button part, so will give it a bash in a bit and post back my results !

[D-Mac]

mine would need to be a php page. tbp's could link to random.php from your html page.

[hairycornflakes]

thanks folks, got it working perfectly