Getting random row from MySQL

[thesti]

Hi, i'm learning php and MySQL

and i want to display only let's say 4 records (different/random every page load) from my query that could be more than 4. but no repeating records would be shown.

i could think a way that's kinda hard. is there any function in php or mysql that can make it easier?

thx

[Atli]

Hi.

A very simple way to do this would be to simply use a query like:

SELECT * FROM tbl ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 4
 

But this will get slow on large tables.

Another way would be to find the highest possible ID in your table, select a few random numbers and fetch only those rows.

Keep in mind that this will not be truly random if there are gaps in the ID's in your table, but I doubt that will have any notable effect.

[thesti]

hi, thx Atli

i'll try this one.

SELECT * FROM tbl ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 4