Question

I am trying to display random banner each time the user refresh the page. The problem I am facing is that I don’t want the last banner to be displayed again. I there any other way to remember the last displayed one without using cookies or database implementation?

Cookie Implementation:

<?php

$randIndex = rand(1,6);
if(!isset($_COOKIE["lastDispalyed"])){
    setcookie("lastDispalyed",$randIndex,time()+60*60*24);
}
else{       
    while($_COOKIE["lastDispalyed"] == $randIndex){
        $randIndex = rand(1,6);
    } 
    setcookie("lastDispalyed",$randIndex,time()+60*60*24);
} ?>

<img src="images/mainBanners/<?php echo $randIndex; ?>.JPG"/>

Answer 1

You could use a session variable:

<?php

    session_start(); // <-- start session before outputting any HTML

    $randIndex = rand(1,6);

    if (!isset($_SESSION["lastDisplayed"])) {

        $_SESSION["lastDisplayed"] = $randIndex;

    } else {    

        while ($_SESSION["lastDisplayed"] == $randIndex) {
            $randIndex = rand(1,6);
        }

        $_SESSION["lastDisplayed"] = $randIndex;
    }

?>

Reference session_start().