Otto on WordPress

Wrote this quick WordPress code snippet at WordCamp Louisville. It makes a /random/ URL on your site which redirects to a random post. Thought some people might find it useful.

Not a perfect little snippet, but gets the job done. Note the use of the little-used 307 redirect for temporary redirection. This is to make browsers not cache the results of the redirect, like some of them might do with a 302.

add_action('init','random_add_rewrite');
function random_add_rewrite() {
       global $wp;
       $wp->add_query_var('random');
       add_rewrite_rule('random/?$', 'index.php?random=1', 'top');
}

add_action('template_redirect','random_template');
function random_template() {
       if (get_query_var('random') == 1) {
               $posts = get_posts('post_type=post&orderby=rand&numberposts=1');
               foreach($posts as $post) {
                       $link = get_permalink($post);
               }
               wp_redirect($link,307);
               exit;
       }
}

There’s plugins that do this sort of thing too, but this is such a simple little thing that it doesn’t really need a big amount of code to do.

Edit: Added get_permalink() optimization from @Raherian.