Picture of the day - how to get a daily random number?

Hi all,

I have google a bit but I haven't what I'm looking for, so better to try with DP

How can I generate daily (not at every page refresh!) a random three digit (for example: 003, 047, 123...) number that then i can use as part of the image.

<a href="photos/image-<?php echo $randomnumber; ?>.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="photos/thumb_image-<?php echo $randomnumber; ?>.jpg" /></a>

Code (markup):

How can I generate this "$randomnumber"?

I have tried with rand but it gives me a different number at every refresh...

Thanks

 

make a script that will be accessed with crontab one time per 24 hours and insert the given number into a file or a database and then get it from there

 

Use rand() but set the seed as the current date. This will generate a random number that will stay the same for that day.

$seed = (int)floor(time()/(24*60*60));
srand($seed);
$randomnumber = rand(999);

PHP:

$randomnumber will be 0, 1, 2 ... 999.

If you need the leading zeros then use this function:

function leading_zeros($value, $places){

    if(is_numeric($value)){
        for($x = 1; $x <= $places; $x++){
            $ceiling = pow(10, $x);
            if($value < $ceiling){
                $zeros = $places - $x;
                for($y = 1; $y <= $zeros; $y++){
                    $leading .= "0";
                }
            $x = $places + 1;
            }
        }
        $output = $leading . $value;
    }
    else{
        $output = $value;
    }
    return $output;
}

PHP:

Usage

$randomnumber = leading_zeros(rand(999),3);

PHP:

$randomnumber will be 000, 001, 002 ... 999.

 

Thank Limotek, seems working fine. I will check it tomorrow +rep for you

Just a question. From where it gets the time? The image will change at server's midnight or 24 hrs after first image request?

 

time() is based on the servers clock.

 

Yes that is true, you can customise this by using date_default_timezone_set.

 

Leading zeros can be easily added using inbuilt PHP str_pad function.

echo str_pad($randomnumber, 3, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);

PHP: