how to set a veriable to a random number?

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I'd have a list of numbers, and I'd like to set a single variable to pull up a random number each time it's pulled...

So say my numbers are 1, 2, and 3..each time the script is called it will pull a random number from a list that I've made (there are only 30 or 40 numbers I want to pull from). How would I set that up in php so that when I call say $variable it pulls from that list of random numbers to use as that variable?

Thanks!

 

use the random function ex.

<?php

$somenum = rand(1,40); 

echo $somenum ; //output random number  from 1 to 40
?>

PHP:

 

If you're numbers are sequential, then the above will work. If they aren't:

Assuming you're using the number 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and 17 (primes):

<?php
$numbers = array(1 => 2, 2 => 3, 3 => 5, 4 => 7, 5 => 11, 6 => 13, 7 => 17);
$r = rand(1, 7);
$random = $numbers[$r];
echo $random;
?>

PHP:

The above will also work with random words(just replace the numbers after the "=>" with a word enclosed by quotes)

 

Even easier:

$numbers = array(1,2,4,8,16,32,64);
$number = array_rand($numbers);
echo $number;

PHP:

 

amazing. Thanks for the help!!