note 87487 added to function.rand

I also enjoy making one-liners. Here's a non-regular expression approach. It generates a random 32 character string consisting of, by default, only A-Z, a-z, and 0-9, but you can change the value of $a for other characters. The random string will be in variable $s after this line. for ($s = '', $i = 0, $z = strlen($a = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789')-1; $i != 32; $x = rand(0,$z), $s .= $a{$x}, $i++); If you don't want the same character to appear beside itself, use this: for ($i = 0, $z = strlen($a = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890')-1, $s = $a{rand(0,$z)}, $i = 1; $i != 32; $x = rand(0,$z), $s .= $a{$x}, $s = ($s{$i} == $s{$i-1} ? substr($s,0,-1) : $s), $i=strlen($s)); For those of you who want both as a function, use this: function rand_chars($c, $l, $u = FALSE) { if (!$u) for ($s = '', $i = 0, $z = strlen($c)-1; $i < $l; $x = rand(0,$z), $s .= $c{$x}, $i++); else for ($i = 0, $z = strlen($c)-1, $s = $c{rand(0,$z)}, $i = 1; $i != $l; $x = rand(0,$z), $s .= $c{$x}, $s = ($s{$i} == $s{$i-1} ? substr($s,0,-1) : $s), $i=strlen($s)); return $s; } string $c is the string of characters to use. integer $l is how long you want the string to be. boolean $u is whether or not a character can appear beside itself. Examples: rand_chars("ABCEDFG", 10) == GABGFFGCDA rand_chars("ABCEDFG", 10, TRUE) == CBGFAEDFEC ---- Server IP: 64.71.164.2 Probable Submitter: 209.248.109.19 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.rand.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/87487 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/87487 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/87487 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php