note 74468 deleted from function.rand by felipe

Note Submitter: dxillusion at gmail dot com 

----

A very useful function for creating key with a lot of flexibility to control the type of characters used in your key 
you can add your custom type of character limitations to it by adding a custom preg_match according to your liking

Enjoy

<?php
/**
* Key Generator
*
* @param	int	    Length of the key 
* @param	string	Type of Character 
*					(lower, upper, numeric, ALPHA, ALNUM)
*
* @return	string	Generated key from the arguments
*/

function mKey($len = 12, $type = 'ALNUM')
{
	// Register the lower case alphabet array
	$alpha = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm',
				   'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z');

	// Register the upper case alphabet array					 
	$ALPHA = array('A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M',
		  		   'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z');
		
	// Register the numeric array			   
	$num = array('1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '0');
	
	// Initialize the keyVals array for use in the for loop
	$keyVals = array();
	
	// Initialize the key array to register each char
	$key = array();	
	
	// Loop through the choices and register
	// The choice to keyVals array
	switch ($type)
	{
		case 'lower' :
			$keyVals = $alpha;
			break;
		case 'upper' :
			$keyVals = $ALPHA;
			break;
		case 'numeric' :
			$keyVals = $num;
			break;
		case 'ALPHA' :
			$keyVals = array_merge($alpha, $ALPHA);
			break;
		case 'ALNUM' :
			$keyVals = array_merge($alpha, $ALPHA, $num);
			break;
	}
	
	// Loop as many times as specified
	// Register each value to the key array
	for($i = 0; $i <= $len-1; $i++)
	{
		$r = rand(0,count($keyVals)-1);
		$key[$i] = $keyVals[$r];
	}
	
	// Glue the key array into a string and return it
	return join("", $key);
}
?>

If you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me