Efficiently finding a random record

[Brian Dunning]

I have a db of about 300,000 records and when I try to find one  
random record like this:

select * from table order by rand() limit 1;
it can take several minutes. My Sherlock Holmes instincts tell me  
that what I'm doing is somehow inefficient. What is the primary  
culprit here?

--
MySQL General Mailing List
For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql
To unsubscribe:    http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]