PHP Tutorial - Trying to get random array value to echo on element class

Like the question says I am working with the array_rand function in php and my goal is to get this function to randomly generate a class in my loop. Currently it just prints the 2nd value in the array each time. How can I have this echo a random class for the div in my loop?

if ($featured_query->have_posts()) :   

                    while ($featured_query->have_posts()) :  

                        $featured_query->the_post(); 
                        $masonry_classes = array(
                        'grid-item',
                        'grid-item--width2'
                        );
                    $random_class = array_rand($masonry_classes, 2);
                         ?>
                    <li <?php //post_class( $classes ); ?> class="<?php echo $masonry_classes[$random_class[1]]; ?>">




Answer:

since you only want one array element you can combine the (random)selection and display on to a convenient one-liner:

echo $masonry_classes[array_rand($masonry_classes)];

ref: array_rand()

Answer:

It looks like you misunderstood how array_rand works.

If you don't specify the second parameter or set it to 1, the function will return an integer which is an index of the random entry in the array.

If you set the second parameter to a number greater than 1 then the function will return an array of randomly picked indexes.

So, if you do:

$rand = array_rand($masonry_classes);

...you will end up with with either 0 or 1 (because your array contains two entries whose indexes are 0 and 1 respectively). In that case you can do

$class = $masonry_classes[array_rand($masonry_classes)];

to retrieve one random class and the following to print it:

class="<?php print $class; ?>"

If you do

$rand = array_rand($masonry_classes, 2);

then it will return 2 random indexes which in your case are both, 0 and 1.

To retrieve the matching entries you'll now have to do the following:

$classes = array_intersect_key($masonry_classes, array_flip($rand));

To render them in your HTML simply do the following join:

class="<?php print join(' ', $classes); ?>"