How to generate a random, long salt for use in hashing?

Question

What is a way in PHP to make a random, variable length salt for use in hashing? Let\'s say I want to make a 16-character long salt - how would I do it?

Answer 1

Here is I found a function to generate random string:

/* random string */
function rand_string( $length ) {
    $chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";  
    $size = strlen( $chars );
    for( $i = 0; $i < $length; $i++ ) {
        $str .= $chars[ rand( 0, $size - 1 ) ];
    }
    return $str;
}