Generating (pseudo)random alpha-numeric strings

Question

How can I generate a (pseudo)random alpha-numeric string, something like: 'd79jd8c' in PHP?

Answer 1

First make a string with all your possible characters:

 $characters = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789'; 

You could also use range() to do this more quickly.

Then, in a loop, choose a random number and use it as the index to the $characters string to get a random character, and append it to your string:

 $string = '';  $max = strlen($characters) - 1;  for ($i = 0; $i < $random_string_length; $i++) {       $string .= $characters[mt_rand(0, $max)];  } 

$random_string_length is the length of the random string.