Need help with this random image script

[MattUSA]

Hi,

I'n new to the forum + to perl. I have this script below, which displays images at random within the table. What I'm looking is for a way to stop it from displaying the same image more than once - occasionally the same images are displayed within the table. Any advice would be great.

Thank You

#!/usr/bin/perl

#====================== Edit ============================

$basedir="/public_html/cgi-bin/";

@img = ("imag1.JPG",
"imag2.JPG",
"imag3.JPG",
"imag4.JPG",
"imag5.JPG",
"imag6.JPG",
"imag7.JPG",
"imag8.JPG",
"imag9.JPG",
);



#====================== Done ============================

srand($$ & time ^ $$);
$imgnum = rand(@img);

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";

print "<table width=728px align=center><tr>";

for (my $images = 1; $images <= 4; $images++) {
$imgnum = rand(@img);
print "<td><img src=/";
print "@img[$imgnum]";
print "></a></td>";
}

print "</tr></table>";

$imgnum = "";

 

[Kirsle]

Try a hash.

print "<table width=728px align=center><tr>";

my %used = ();

for (my $images = 1; $images <= 4; $images++) {
        $imgnum = rand(@img);

        # skip if this image has been used already
        next if exists $used{$imgnum};

        $used{$imgnum} = "yes"; # create a hash key
           # so we won't reuse this image

        print "<td><img src=/";
        print "$img[$imgnum]"; # also, $img[$imgnum] is better syntax than @img[$imgnum]
        print "></a></td>";
}

print "</tr></table>";

 

[MattUSA]

Thanks Kirsle. It works a lot better than before, but occasionally still shows the same images. Cheers

 

[KevinADC]

diaplay once or not display twice in a row or display all images before repeating an image?

 

[MattUSA]

not display twice in a row ideally

 

[KevinADC]

See if this works OK. Make a file with all the images (images.txt) the last line should be a word that is not the same as any of the images, for example:

frog
cat
cow
bird
dog
fish
camel
pig
horse
skunk
snake
chicken
elephant
skunk
>><<

the script will overwrite the last line the first time it runs. The last line will be used to store the name of the last image displayed.

# put these three lines at beginning of script somewhere
use Tie::File;
use Fcntl;
my $path = 'path/to/images.txt';

tie my @images, 'Tie::File', $path, mode => O_RDWR or die "Can't open $path: $!";
print qq~<table width="728" align="center"><tr>\n~;
print qq~<td><img src="~, get_image(), qq~"></td>\n~ for (1..3);
print '</tr></table>';
untie(@images);

sub get_image {
   my $image = $images[int(rand(scalar@images-1))];
   if ($image eq $images[$#images]) {
      get_image()
   }
   else {
      $images[$#images] = $image;   
      return($image);
   }
}