Laravel 5 Collections: Retrieving Random Collection Elements With random

The random method will retrieve a random $amount of items from the collection. By default, the random method will return only one item, however a different $number argument can be supplied to change the number of items returned. If the number of items returned is greater than one, a Collection instance is returned. If the number of items returned is exactly one, one individual item will be returned. If the $amount of items requested exceeds the total number of items in the collection, an instance of InvalidArgumentException will be thrown.

#Signature

1public function random(
2    $number = null
3);

#Example Use

The following example demonstrates the basic usage of the random method:

 1use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
 2
 3// Create a new collection instance.
 4$collection = new Collection([
 5    'first'  => 'I am first',
 6    'second' => 'I am second',
 7    'third'  => 'I am third'
 8]);
 9
10// Randomly retrieve a single item.
11$random = $collection->random();
12
13// Randomly retrieve a collection of items. The
14// returned value will be a Collection instance.
15$randomItems = $collection->random(2);

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