ASP.NET Query to get Random Object

Question

I'm looking for an efficient method of getting a single result from a SQL database randomly.

What I'm trying to accomplish is a "click here for new tip" where the tip is randomly selected from database. To simplify I don't care if this user has already seen this tip recently or ever before.

I realize I could get all tips then select one at random but that seems terribly inefficient, is there a built in or easy 'Random' function?

Thanks in advance

a1ex07 · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19 22:34:57Z

3

Will it work for you (I assume you are using SQLServer) ?

SELECT TOP 1 * FROM Your_Table ORDER BY NEWID()

answered Sep 19, 2011 at 22:34

a1ex07

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2 Comments

Valchris Over a year ago

I saw this before posing the question, it just sounded terribly inefficient. I found this document after: petefreitag.com/item/466.cfm

Valchris Over a year ago

Maybe you can answer my question, from the documentation I read it sounds like this creates a new temporary id for all entries in the table before choosing one, is that really scalable?

kroonwijk · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19 22:35:58Z

0

Simply use the RAND function on your database: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177610.aspx. Very efficient!

answered Sep 19, 2011 at 22:35

kroonwijk

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1 Comment

a1ex07 Over a year ago

RAND() doesn't always work as required (see sql-server-helper.com/tips/generate-random-records.aspx)

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