PHP Functions Essential Reference

shuffle

bool shuffle(array array) 

Randomizes the order of elements in an array.

Returns:

TRUE on success; FALSE on failure

Description:

Randomizes the order of elements in an indexed array. Use srand() to seed the randomizer before calling this function. If you pass an associative array to this function, it randomizes the values but destroys the keys.

After shuffling, array is numerically indexed starting from 0.

Version:

PHP 3 since 3.0.8, PHP 4 since 4.0b4

See also:

array_rand() 
rand() 
srand() 

Example:

Randomize the elements of an array

$numbers = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10); srand(time()); echo "Before: ", implode(", ", $numbers), "\n"; shuffle($numbers); echo "After: ", implode(", ", $numbers), "\n"; Output: Before: 1, 2, 3, ...