Question

UPDATE
Sorry. I wasn’t as clear as I need to be I think. I am basically trying to insert more than a text string. The function is in wordpress and pulls in html code from the dashboard for ads.

   <ul id="randomOrderList">
        <li><?php if (function_exists('dfrads')) { echo dfrads('1'); } ?></li>
        <li><?php if (function_exists('dfrads')) { echo dfrads('2'); } ?></li>
        <li><?php if (function_exists('dfrads')) { echo dfrads('3'); } ?></li>
    </ul>

To this:

<ul id="randomOrderList">
    <li><a href="" title=""><img  src="name" alt=" " /></a></li>
    <li><a href="" title=""><img  src="name" alt=" " /></a></li>
    <li><a href="" title=""><img  src="name" alt=" " /></a></li>
</ul>

I tried this but I am not sure how to add the php in the array:

<?
  $array=array('<?php if (function_exists('dfrads')) { echo dfrads('1'); } ?>','<?php if (function_exists('dfrads')) { echo dfrads('2'); } ?>','<?php if (function_exists('dfrads')) { echo dfrads('3'); } ?>');
  shuffle($array);
  $array = array_chunk($array, 5);
  foreach($array as $section){
    echo '<ul id="randomOrderList">'."\n";
    foreach($section as $link){
      echo ' <li>'.$link.'</li>'."\n";
    }
    echo '</ul>'."\n";
  }
?>

Answer 1

You could put your strings into an array :

$strings = array(
    'something 1', 
    'something 2', 
    'something 3', 
);

Without any kind of code — which is not permitted in there.

Then, use the shuffle() function to randomize the array :

shuffle($strings);

And, now, loop over your array, to display the items :

echo '<ul id="randomOrderList">';
foreach ($strings as $string) {
    echo '<li>' . $string . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';

They will be displayed in random order.

Edit after edit of the question : you can construct the array calling your function, of course.

For example, you can use something like this :

$strings = array(
    dfrads('1'), 
    dfrads('2'), 
    dfrads('3'), 
);

If needed, you can include all your code inside a test for the existence of the dfrads function :

if (function_exists('dfrads')) {
    // Create the array
    // randomize it with shuffle
    // do the loop and the echos
}