note 63748 added to function.array-rand

If you use array_rand() with a labeled array of object, it appears to generate an array of numeric indexes and not an array of string indexes (at least under PHP 4.4.2). For example, if you have <?php $data = array ('name1' => $obj1, 'name2' => $obj2, ...); ?> Then <?php array_rand(data,2) ?> will produce something like ARRAY([0] => 13, [1] =>5) and not ARRAY([0] => 'name13', [1] => 'name5'). Given this behavior, I produced the following code to produce a random sample (without replacement) from a labeled array preserving the labels. <?php function sample($data,$n) { $result = array(); $keys = array_keys($data); $members = array_rand($keys,$n); foreach ($members as $index) { $key = $keys[$index]; $result[$key] = $data[$key]; } return $result; } ?> ---- Server IP: 64.71.164.2 Probable Submitter: 144.81.32.1 ---- X-Spam-Status: No, hits=3.1 required=5.0 tests=DATE_MISSING,FROM_NO_LOWER autolearn=no version=2.64 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-rand.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/note/edit/63748 Del: integrated -- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748/integrated Del: useless -- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748/useless Del: bad code -- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748/bad+code Del: spam -- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748/spam Del: non-english -- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748/non-english Del: in docs -- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748/in+docs Del: other reasons-- http://master.php.net/note/delete/63748 Reject -- http://master.php.net/note/reject/63748 Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php