note 104156 added to function.rand

Regarding getting a random row from a table in MySQL (or Postgres), it is better to offload that to the database rather than doing one query to grab tons of data from the database, then a second query to fetch one row. I.e., this is far more efficient for small to medium sized tables (i.e. less than 1 mil. rows): SELECT * FROM [TABLE] ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1; For large tables, this is both easy to implement and efficient: SELECT COUNT(id) AS number_of_rows FROM [TABLE]; then something alone the lines of: <?php $sql = "SELECT * FROM [TABLE] LIMIT 1 OFFSET ".(rand(0, $number_of_rows - 1)); // ... ?> ---- Server IP: 69.147.83.197 Probable Submitter: 72.10.153.136 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.rand.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/104156 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/104156 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/104156 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php