Pick a random email address out of a maillist

[ionicle]

Hey everybody.

 

Trying to figure out how to complete a certain task here, and I am pretty sure it can be done via php. Not sure how to start implementing it though, so any suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

 

What I wanna accomplish is, as follows:

 

Out of a list of email addresses, I would like php to pick ONE RANDOM email address out of every domain name, listed in there, for instance:

 

dave@yahoo.com

john@yahoo.com

michael@hotmail.com

jason@hotmail.com

etc.

 

Just one random email addy with a certain domain name ( namely, the part after the @ sign ). The ending result out of the example, listed above, ought to be:

 

dave@yahoo.com

jason@hotmail.com

 

That's it, pretty much. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Open to suggestions on how to start this thing!

Edited November 20, 2013 by ionicle

[MDCode]

You have to give more information. How is the list provided? Is it a giant string separated by commas? Is it an array?

[cyberRobot]

You could try something like the following:

1. Put the email addresses in an array
2. Use array_rand() to get a random email
3. Save the random email into a new list.
4. Grab the domain with explode() and store it in another array used for testing
5. Get another random email address with array_rand().
6. See if the domain of the newly chosen email is already in the array of picked domains with in_array()
7. If the domain has already been chosen from, get the next email. If not, store email and domain and continue processing the emails until done.

 

Of course, I may have missed a step or two, but this should hopefully get you started.

Edited November 20, 2013 by cyberRobot

[denno020]

The way I would do it is as follows:

Loop through all email addresses, matching the domain name for each, and using that as a key in an array... actually it'll just be easier if I show you code

$emailAddresses = array() //This is the email addresses you have to start with, it will hopefully be an array. If it's a string, use explode() to get it into an array
$sortedEmails = array(); //Will store the sorted email addresses
foreach ($emailAddresses as $emailAddy) {
    preg_match("/.*@(.*)$/", $emailAddy, $matches);
    $domain = $matches[1];
    if (!isset($sortedEmails[$domain])) { //If the domain doesn't already have it's own array, create it
        $sortedEmails[$domain] = array();
    }
    $sortedEmails[$domain][] = $emailAddy; //Add the email address to the end of the array for the domain
}
 
//Pick random email
foreach ($sortedEmails as $domain) {
    echo $domain[rand(0, count($domain)-1]; //Pick a random number between 0 and the size of the array minus 1, which will effectively be a random index
}

Hopefully that helps.

 

Denno

[cyberRobot]

This is probably doing homework, but since someone has already provided a solution [and I was intregued]...I thought I would work up a solution.

<?php
//INITIALIZE ARRAYS
$emails        = array('1@yahoo.com', '2@yahoo.com', '3@yahoo.com', 'G1@gmail.com', 'G2@gmail.com', 'G3@gmail.com', 'another@somewebsite.com', 'yetmore@zd.com', 'yetmoremore@zd.com');
$newEmails     = array();
$usedDomains   = array();
$uniqueDomains = array();
 
//WHILE THERE ARE EMAILS AVAILABLE, PROCESS THE NEXT RANDOM ENTRY
while(!empty($emails)) {
     //GET RANDOM EMAIL
     $randomEntryID = array_rand($emails);
     $randomEntry   = $emails[$randomEntryID];
     $currentDomain = substr(strrchr($randomEntry, '@'), 1);
 
     //UPDATE ARRAYS
     $newEmails[]   = $randomEntry;
     $usedDomains[] = $currentDomain;
     unset($emails[$randomEntryID]);
}
 
//REMOVE DUPLICATE DOMAINS (ALSO GIVES THE INDEX WHERE THE DOMAIN WAS FIRST USED)
$uniqueDomains = array_unique($usedDomains);
$uniqueIDs     = array_keys($uniqueDomains);
 
//DISPLAY EMAILS OF INTEREST
foreach($uniqueIDs as $currID) {
     print '<div>' . $newEmails[$currID] . '</div>'; 
}
 
//SHOW WHAT THE ARRAYS CONTAIN
print '<pre>' . print_r($newEmails, true) . '</pre>';
print '<pre>' . print_r($usedDomains, true) . '</pre>';
print '<pre>' . print_r($uniqueDomains, true) . '</pre>';
print '<pre>' . print_r($uniqueIDs, true) . '</pre>';
?>

[ionicle]

Last suggestion works perfectly! The only thing I need now is to load a text file into the array, and avoid having to input email addresses manually.

 

 

 
 
 
<?php

// Open the file
$filename = "test.txt";
$fp = @fopen($filename, 'r');

// Add each line to an array
if ($fp) {
$array = explode("\n", fread($fp, filesize($filename)));
}

//INITIALIZE ARRAYS
$emails = $array;
$newEmails = array();
$usedDomains = array();
$uniqueDomains = array();

//WHILE THERE ARE EMAILS AVAILABLE, PROCESS THE NEXT RANDOM ENTRY
while(!empty($emails)) {
//GET RANDOM EMAIL
$randomEntryID = array_rand($emails);
$randomEntry = $emails[$randomEntryID];
$currentDomain = substr(strrchr($randomEntry, '@'), 1);

//UPDATE ARRAYS
$newEmails[] = $randomEntry;
$usedDomains[] = $currentDomain;
unset($emails[$randomEntryID]);
}

//REMOVE DUPLICATE DOMAINS (ALSO GIVES THE INDEX WHERE THE DOMAIN WAS FIRST USED)
$uniqueDomains = array_unique($usedDomains);
$uniqueIDs = array_keys($uniqueDomains);

//DISPLAY EMAILS OF INTEREST
foreach($uniqueIDs as $currID) {
print '<div>' . $newEmails[$currID] . '</div>';
}


?>
 

 

 

The .txt file contains the following test emails:

 

laina@yahoo.com
kochina@yahoo.com
brym@gmail.com
shushlek@gmail.com
kurnica@gmail.com
shushlica@yahoo.com

 

However, when I execute the php, I get the following output:

 

 

kochina@yahoo.com
kurnica@gmail.com
shushlica@yahoo.com

 

There's only 2 types of domains in those email addresses, and I always get 1 of one domain and 2 of the other, instead of one of each.

 

What am I missing here?

[MDCode]

You could just use file();

 

Edit:

$array = file($filename);
print_r($array);

Edited November 20, 2013 by SocialCloud

[denno020]

 

This is probably doing homework, but since someone has already provided a solution [and I was intregued]...I thought I would work up a solution.

 

 

Oops! I didn't even think..

[cyberRobot]

Oops! I didn't even think..

 

No worries

[ionicle]

Thank you everyone for the help! Issue was sorted out and everything's working like a charm now.