Re: order by rand() works not satisfying

on 05/25/2003 12:35 PM, Merlin at news.groups@web.de appended the following bits to my mbox: > I am running mysql 3.23.49 on my server. There are some troubles with order > by rand() function. It workes, but it seems, that only the first few rows > are concidered. PHP pulls out 3 pics by random out of the table. I have > found that this are more or less the first 50 rows. All other rows apear > only verry rar. > > Is this a bug in mysql? Just looking at the MySQL Documentation page, I see this note: "MySQL changed the way RAND() functions, such that you MUST supply a SEED to get an actual random number. If you do not, each new connection will return close to the same number as the previous new connection.... A basic way to seed this would be to run RAND(NOW())" A couple other comments suggest other options. <http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Mathematical_functions.html> Hope that helps. Sincerely, Paul Burney <http://paulburney.com/> <?php while ($self != "asleep") { $sheep_count++; } ?>