Question

I’m trying to perform some basic analysis on Lotto results 🙂

I have a database that looks something like:

id|no|day|dd|mmm|yyyy|n1|n2|n3|n4|n5|n6|bb|jackpot|wins|machine|set
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 |22|mon|22|aug|1999|01|05|11|29|38|39|04|2003202| 1  | Topaz | 3
2 |23|tue|24|aug|1999|01|06|16|21|25|39|03|2003202| 2  | Pearl | 1

That’s just an example. So, n1 to n6 are standard balls in the lottery and bb stands for the bonus ball.

I want to write a PHP/SQL code that will display just one random sequence of numbers that have yet to come out. However, If the numbers 01, 04, 05, 11, 29, 38 and 39 have come out, I don’t want the code to print out them numbers but just in a different order, as in theory them set of numbers are already winning numbers.

I just can’t get my head around the logic of this. I’d appreciate any help.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Assuming that the balls are stored in ascending order in your database like the examples you’ve given, you could just generate a random sequence of 6 numbers, sort them and then generate 1 random bonus number. Once you’ve done that it would just be a matter of doing a simple SQL query into your database and seeing if it comes back with a result:

$nums=...//generate your 6 numbers plus bonus number here
sort($nums);

$mysqli=new mysqli('...','...','...','...');
$stmt=$mysqli->prepare("SELECT * FROM table
    WHERE n1=? AND n2=? AND n3=? AND n4=? AND n5=? AND n6=? AND bb=?");
$stmt->bind_param('iiiiiii', $nums[0], $nums[1], $nums[2], $nums[3], $nums[4], $nums[5], $nums[6]);
$stmt->execute();
$stmt->store_result();

if($stmt->num_rows==0)
    //your numbers have not been drawn before - return them
else
    //otherwise loop round and try again

As long as both list of numbers (but not the bonus ball) are sorted you won’t have any problems with a different ordering of an already drawn set of numbers.

This will become less efficient as your database of previous draws gets fuller, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that for a few decades. 🙂