PHP rand()

[Packetrat]

PHP rand(1,132) gives me 101 every time.

[Technophile]

I'm not a PHP expert or anything but don't you need to seed the random number generator to get different values?

http://www.thunderstone.com/site/vortexman/node128.html
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.srand.php

PHP 4.2 should seed it automatically.

[Packetrat]

Yeah, I'm using PHP 4.34 and the manual indicates that seeding is not necessary after 4.2 or thereabouts.

[Technophile]

Damn.

[Tekime]

Have you tried seeding it to see if it still gives you the same number?

And does it give you 101 on every call to the script, or only duplicates when called multiple times from the same script?

If you can post the chunk of code you're using perhaps the context will reveal some more details.

[Packetrat]

It gives me the same number every time i run the script. rand() is only called once in the entire app, and I've checked the SQL statement that gives me the maximum of 132. It is correct and the value correctly gets passed to the maximum parameter.

$sql = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM quote";

$quote_count = mysql_result(mysql_query($sql,$database_link),0);

$quote_id = rand(1,$quote_count);

Echoing quote_id gives me 101 every time.

Part of my problem as a coder in any situation is that I want and expect things to work correctly. If the PHP manual says I don't need to seed the randomizer, I don't. If it tells me I should use $_POST instead of $HTTP_POST_VARS, I do. If the W3C standard says I should no longer use the center tag, I don't. Unfortunately, many of these issues need workarounds in certain instances. &*#$%@!

[Tekime]

Try typecasting the return field?

$quote_id = rand(1, (int)$quote_count);

[Packetrat]

No change.