Re: A problem with fgets()

Usamah M. Ali wrote: > Hello, > > I have a function that picks up a random entry from a file consisting > of city names, each name on a separate line. The random value is > generated by rand() before fseek()ing to the position determined by > it. The problem is that when using fgets() to get a random line, it > returns a part of the city name, not the whole name. AFAIK, fgets() > reads a whole line, and even if it's in the middle of a line, it reads > the whole next line. fseek doesn't go to the start of a line, it goes to a particular byte - so that's where the problem lies (not with fgets). There's no function (that I could see) which would go to the start of the line based on that offset (I guess you could fseek to a particular spot then reverse char by char until you find a newline - but that'll be rather slow for anything that has a long line). You could read the whole thing into an array and do a rand on that: $cities = file('filename.txt'); // take 1 off from the max number as $cities is a 0 based array $number_of_cities = sizeof($cities) - 1; $city_number = rand(0, $number_of_cities); $city = $cities[$city_number]; Though if you have a big file that reads the whole thing into memory etc. -- Postgresql & php tutorials http://www.designmagick.com/