This is a command line script that interfaces with Minecraft via rcon. It gives all the players on your server a chance to win a random item by typing "join". Here are the different modes:

block - random blocks
item - random items
record - random music disk
passive - random passive mob egg
hostile - random hostile mob egg
junk - random junky item
good - random good item

I've removed a few items that players just shouldn't have like mob spawners, nether portals and end portals, but there are still some tiles that might seem a bit odd, but they shouldn't do any harm.

This requires mcrcon in order to connect to the rcon server. You can install the pre-compiled version or build it from source.

Next you need to enable rcon in your server.properties:

rcon.password=password
enable-rcon=true
rcon.port=23456

Next you need to save this script into the same directory as your server.log because it needs to tail it in order to respond to the players. The command to run it is:

tail -f -n 1 server.log | php random_item.php <type> <quantity>

You can shorten this by creating a shell script and calling it random.sh:

tail -f -n 1 server.log | php random_item.php $1 $2

Then you run the game by typing:

./random.sh junk 24
./random.sh good 1
./random.sh item 5

There is a bug in Prerelease 1.3 that sometimes causes your server to crash when issuing rcon commands, so be aware of this.

<?php

$rcon_ip = '1.1.1.1';
$rcon_port = '23456';
$rcon_password = 'password';
$rcon = "./mcrcon -c -H $rcon_ip -P $rcon_port -p $rcon_password ";

$exclude = array(8,9,10,11,26,34,36,43,51,52,55,63,64,68,71,74,75,76,78,83,90,93,94,95,97,117,118,119,120,124,125,132);
$hostile_exclude = array(53,56,61);

$junk = array(32,58,367,336,290,270,269,4,3,37,38,6,13,60,324,87,288);
$good = array(56,57,19,42,110,116,122,130,133,264,276,277,278,279,310,311,312,313,324,347,354,388,384,368,381);

/********************************************************************************/
// Recursive function that doesn't return an item that's in the exclusion list.

function rand_exclude($first, $last, $exclude) {
    $num = rand($first,$last);
    if(in_array($num, $exclude)) return rand_exclude($first, $last, $exclude);
    return $num;
}

@system($rcon."'say Let us play the random item game! Type \"join\" to play.' >> rcon_output.txt");
@system($rcon."'list'");

$mode = $argv[1];
$quantity = $argv[2];

if(!$mode) {
    $no_mode = true;
    $quantity = 1;
}

$fulltimer = time()+microtime();

$stdin = fopen ('php://stdin', 'r');
ob_implicit_flush (true);
while($line = fgets ($stdin))
{
    preg_match("/\<([^\>]*)\>/", $line, $matches);
    $username = $matches[1];

    if($username && preg_match("/join/", $line) and !$done[$username]) {
        $done[$username] = true;

        if($no_mode) {
            $mode = rand(1,18);
            switch(true) {
                case (in_array($mode, range(1,5))): $mode = 'item'; break;
                case (in_array($mode, range(6,10))): $mode = 'block'; break;
                case (in_array($mode, range(11,15))): $mode = 'junk'; break;
                case ($mode == 16): $mode = 'record'; break;
                case ($mode == 17): $mode = 'passive'; break;
                case ($mode == 18): $mode = 'hostile'; break;
            }
        }

    if($mode == 'item') {
            $item = rand(256,388);
            // Always discard a good item the first time to make them more rare.
            if(in_array($item, $good)) $item = rand(256,388);
            system($rcon."'give $username $item $quantity' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
        else if($mode == 'block') {
            $item = rand_exclude(1,136,$exclude);
            // Always discard a good item the first time to make them more rare.
            if(in_array($item, $good)) $item = rand_exclude(1,136,$exclude);
            system($rcon."'give $username $item $quantity' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
        else if($mode == 'record') {
            $item = rand(2256,2266);
            system($rcon."'give $username $item $quantity' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
        else if($mode == 'passive') {
            $item = rand(90,99);
            system($rcon."'give $username 383 $quantity $item' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
        else if($mode == 'hostile') {
            $item = rand_exclude(50,62,$hostile_exclude);
            system($rcon."'give $username 383 $quantity $item' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
        else if($mode == 'junk') {
            $item = array_rand($junk, 1);
            $item = $junk[$item];
            system($rcon."'give $username $item $quantity' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
        else if($mode == 'good') {
            $item = array_rand($good, 1);
            $item = $good[$item];
            system($rcon."'give $username $item $quantity' >> rcon_output.txt");
        }
    }

    if(preg_match("/\[Rcon: (Given[^\]]*)\]/", $line, $matches)) {
        $result = addslashes($matches[1]);
        @system($rcon."'say $result' >> rcon_output.txt");
        $result = "/************************************************************\\"."\n".$result."\n\************************************************************/\n";
        print $result;
        $message .= $result;
        $count++;
    }
    else if(!preg_match('/Rcon connection from/', $line)) {
        print $line;
        $message .= $line;
    }   

    $stoptimer = time()+microtime();
    $timer = number_format(round($stoptimer-$fulltimer,3) / 60, 0);
    if($timer > 1) break;
}

@system($rcon."'say Thank you for playing the random item game! ($count Players)' >> rcon_output.txt");
exit;
?>