Having a hell of a time with arrays - need some help please.

[Jax2]

Ok, I will explain first what I am trying to do, and show you how I am going about it, which isn't working

 

I have a table set up. It has missing ID numbers, such as, 1 2 3 6 7 8 11 12 ..etc.

 

I am trying to pull a random ID number from all valid ID numbers. (Meaning, I don't want to get an ID of a record that is no longer there, so skip all the missing ID's)

 

This is for a cron job to change which record is being shown each day, randomly. I figured, logically, the best way to do this would be to pull all the valid ID's into an array, and then use array_rand($id_array,1); to pull one random ID number out of the array.

 

So, I tried using this code:

//Set variable as an array
$id_array = array();

//Populate array with valid ID's
$sql="SELECT ID FROM riddles";
$result=mysql_query($sql,$db) or die(mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result,$db))
{
    $id_array[] = $row['ID'];
};
print_r(array($id_array));

$new_rotd=(array_rand($id_array[0],1));

 

I am running into 2 problems with this code. First, when I print_r the array, I get the following:

 

Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => [1] => [2] => [3] => [4] => [5] => [6] => [7] => [8] => [9] => [10] => [11] => [12] => [13] => [14] => [15] => [16] => [17] => [18] => [19] => [20] => [21] => [22] => [23] => ) )

 

The numbers are not correct. It is the correct number of total records, but it is not putting the correct ID number in there.

 

2) When I try and pull a random number out of the array, I get an error saying the First argument has to be an array. It IS an array?!

 

I need to get this working, so any help would be much appreciated. To summarize I need to:

• Pull all valid ID #'s out of the table and put them in an array.
  
• Pull one random number out of that array and set it as variable: $new_rotd
  

 

 

[Muddy_Funster]

ok, try this little change:

//Populate array with valid ID's
$sql="SELECT ID FROM riddles";
$result=mysql_query($sql,$db) or die(mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result,$db))
{
    array_push($id_array,  $row['ID']);
};
$rand_key = array_rand($id_array, 1);
$rand_value= $id_array[$rand_key];
echo $rand_value;

[Jax2]

Muddy, changed it around just a little and it works perfectly. I even learned what  I was doing wrong, so thank you very much

 

[Muddy_Funster]

You're welcome