I think the function is not named properly. You are NOT shuffling an associative array. You are shuffling a numerically indexed array (whose values happen to be associative arrays).
As such, I don't see a great need for this function. You could use array_rand() to pick random keys from the array.
Now, assuming you did want to keep such a function, for example to actually get array of values not just keys. I would consider a few things:
- Consider throwing an exception or logging error if function is passed a non-array value. This can help make sure you are invoking this function properly in your code vs. just returning the passed value unchanged.
- Consider passing "limit" value to the function vs. hard-coding for 4 return elements.
This might yield something like:
function array_rand_values($arr, $limit = 1) {
if(!is_array($arr)) {
throw new InvalidArgumentException('Array expected for first argument.');
}
if(!is_int($limit) || $limit < 1) {
throw new InvalidArgumentException(
'Positive integer value expected for second argument.'
);
}
if(count($arr) <= $limit) {
return shuffle($arr);
return $arr;
}
$keys = array_rand($arr, $limit);
$values = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < $limit; $i++) {
$values[] = $arr[$keys[$i]];
}
return $values;
}
Note that this function does not preserve keys if passed an associative array. This should probably be the logical behavior in such a case, as "shuffling" an associative array typically makes zero sense. This would however still pick X random values from an associative array.
If one needed to pick X random key/value pairs from an associative array, I would suggest a separate function, so that intent of caller is clear. That function may be implemented in very similar manner to the one above, with single line of code change.
function array_rand_values_assoc($arr, $limit = 1) {
// same code as above until assignment in loop
for ($i = 0; $i < $limit; $i++) {
$values[$keys[$i]] = $arr[$keys[$i]];
}
return $values;
}
