generating random codes


Posted on 16th Feb 2014 07:03 pm by admin

Hi guys n gals,

I have a requirement to generate 250,000 unique codes...

These codes are for a tracking service and will be stored in the database (table field has a unique index).

Now I am working on the assumption this must work on the command line as the script will take a long time to complete... here is the salient pat of my code...

Code: <?php
...
function appendToCode( &$val , $key , $append )
{
$val = $val . $append;
}

$chars = "ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ";
$charend = strlen ( $chars );

$date = date ( 'md' );

$month = $date[0].$date[1];
$year = $date[2].$date[3];

$datecode = $chars[$month] . $chars[$year[0]] . $chars[$year[1]];
$codes = array();
$no_codes = isset( $_GET['no_codes'] ) ? $_GET['no_codes'] : 250000;
$codecount = 0;

do
{
for ( $j = $codecount ; $j < $no_codes ; $j++ )
{
$trackcode = NULL;
for ( $i = 0 ; $i < 7 ; $i++ )
{
$trackcode .= $chars[rand( 0 , $charend - 1 )];
echo ( time() - $start ) . PHP_EOL;
}
$codes[] = $trackcode . $date;

}
//$t = count($codes);
//echo 'Codes Generated: ' . $t . PHP_EOL;
//echo 'Last Code: ' . $codes[--$t] . PHP_EOL;

$codes = array_unique( $codes );
$codecount = count ( $codes );

//echo 'Unique Codes: ' . $codecount . PHP_EOL;
// the following statement prevents infinite loop in dev mode...
if (
(time() - $start) > 150
)
{
break;
}


} while ( $codecount < ($no_codes) - 1 );
...
The last characters of the code relate to the date - as these codes will only be developed every now and then - not a frequent occurrence and will allow a check on the database to see if codes ending in that 3 character string exist...

What I am asking is, is there a more efficient method of performing this operation.

Any tips would be most welcome.

No comments posted yet

Your Answer:

Login to answer
179 Like 8 Dislike
Previous forums Next forums
Other forums

storing video files into mysql in php
hi

i have my video files in my folder ,
i have to store the path of the videos into db an

Problem with an browser game.
Hello,i just joined that great forum and i got php prob,its kinda freaky...anyway i got browser game

Why do I get this error?
Error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or

Reduce redundancies in switch functions?
Hello all! I somewhat new to PHP, and was wondering if anyone could give some suggestions on a swit

ImageCreate()
When I create an image and add text to it I want my text to be replaced with a PNG image, because th

Help with file_get_html
The following code gives the expected results:

<html>
<head&g

Sequencing or queuing parallel process
Scenario is as follows
There is one parent process say P1 and 4 child processes say A B C D

an interesting question
Greetings folks, got to ask an interesting question...

let say
i have created a function s

Showing selected item at top of list
Hi,

I've got a list of names which i am fetching from database like this:
$qry = db_query

Warning message
I've put a website that I was doing live and I'm getting this warning message when I try to add a ne

Sign up to write
Sign up now if you have flare of writing..
Login   |   Register
Follow Us
Indyaspeak @ Facebook Indyaspeak @ Twitter Indyaspeak @ Pinterest RSS



Play Free Quiz and Win Cash