quick selection of a random row from a large table

Question

What is a fast way to select a random row from a large mysql table?

I'm working in php, but I'm interested in any solution even if it's in another language.

Answer 1

Grab all the id's, pick a random one from it, and retrieve the full row.

If you know the id's are sequential without holes, you can just grab the max and calculate a random id.

If there are holes here and there but mostly sequential values, and you don't care about a slightly skewed randomness, grab the max value, calculate an id, and select the first row with an id equal to or above the one you calculated. The reason for the skewing is that id's following such holes will have a higher chance of being picked than ones that follow another id.

If you order by random, you're going to have a terrible table-scan on your hands, and the word quick doesn't apply to such a solution.

Don't do that, nor should you order by a GUID, it has the same problem.

Answer 2

I knew there had to be a way to do it in a single query in a fast way. And here it is:

A fast way without involvement of external code, kudos to

http://jan.kneschke.de/projects/mysql/order-by-rand/

SELECT name
  FROM random AS r1 JOIN
       (SELECT (RAND() *
                     (SELECT MAX(id)
                        FROM random)) AS id)
        AS r2
 WHERE r1.id >= r2.id
 ORDER BY r1.id ASC
 LIMIT 1;

Answer 3

An easy but slow way would be (good for smallish tables)

SELECT * from TABLE order by RAND() LIMIT 1

Answer 4

In order to find random rows from a table, don’t use ORDER BY RAND() because it forces MySQL to do a full file sort and only then to retrieve the limit rows number required. In order to avoid this full file sort, use the RAND() function only at the where clause. It will stop as soon as it reaches to the required number of rows. See http://www.rndblog.com/how-to-select-random-rows-in-mysql/

Answer 5

There is another way to produce random rows using only a query and without order by rand(). It involves User Defined Variables. See how to produce random rows from a table

Answer 6

if you don't delete row in this table, the most efficient way is:

(if you know the mininum id just skip it)

SELECT MIN(id) AS minId, MAX(id) AS maxId FROM table WHERE 1

$randId=mt_rand((int)$row['minId'], (int)$row['maxId']);

SELECT id,name,... FROM table WHERE id=$randId LIMIT 1