CSS with some PHP sprinkles?

[Ben]

I've got a site that I'd like to do throw a random (from a predetermined set) colour to the stylesheet to change certain elements - i.e. link colour, H1 color etc on a reload.

My thought was to have the colour stored as a variable, then reference the colour in the CSS so it only actually changes one line each time.

So... if I make my .css file to a .php file and add this at the top:

Code:

<?php header("Content-type: text/css"); ?>

Is this bad practice or not advised?

<cheeky> Me being a total PHP noob 101: Does anyone have an example of PHP that randomly selects from a list of variables per reload? </cheeky>

[JasonD]

That would work. Although in the interests of efficiency I'd suggest one style sheet with the bulk of the css and a second with only the variable line.

<cheeky> Me being a total PHP noob 101: Does anyone have an example of PHP that randomly selects from a list of variables per reload? </cheeky>

array_rand().

[suedenem]

As an aside, you don't need to rename your *.css - if you're using Apache, for example, you can force CSS files to be parsed as PHP by adding something like this to your .htaccess file:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .css

It saves renaming files, stops you having to edit the file's URI and makes the URI future-proof - just because you're using PHP now it doesn't mean you will in 5 years time.