Question

$apple="";
$banana="";
$apple="Red";
$banana="Blue";

$random(rand($apple, $banana);
echo $random;

How can I select a random string (fast) via PHP?

Answer 1

Issue with your code

The PHP rand() function takes two numbers as input to form the range to pick a random number from. You cannot feed it strings.

See the PHP manual page for rand().

Solutions

You can use array_rand():

$strings = array(
    'Red',
    'Blue',
);
$key = array_rand($strings);
echo $strings[$key];

---

Another option is to use shuffle().

$strings = array(
    'Red',
    'Blue',
);
shuffle($strings);
echo reset($strings);