note 32698 deleted from function.mt-rand by cmb

Note Submitter: jsheets at shadonet dot com ---- The following function will create a random base64 encoded key, this is very useful for password reset schemes or anything where you want a random string. To compare the string either compare the base64 encoded value or base64_decode it and compare that. I do not use md5 because md5 results in only 1-9 and a-f in the string or 32^16 possibilities, by using the extended ASCII table and shuffling the array I am able to get a minimum of 32^127 possibilities with a 32 character string, using a longer string will make your value harder to guess still. A lot of machiens will have 32^255 possibilities in a decoded string. <?php function MakeResetKey($min_length = 32, $max_length = 64) { $key = ''; // build range and shuffle range using ASCII table for ($i=0; $i<=255; $i++) { $range[] = chr($i); } // shuffle our range 3 times for ($i=0; $i<=3; $i++) { shuffle($range); } // loop for random number generation for ($i = 0; $i < mt_rand($min_length, $max_length); $i++) { $key .= $range[mt_rand(0, count($range))]; } $return = base64_encode($key); if (!empty($return)) { return $return; } else { return 0; } } ?>