Jeff Herrin wrote:
I don't think cursors are going to help in this case. The order by random() is
still going to give different result sets on different pages.
Jeff
A cursor will maintain the order it was created with until it is
disposed of.
It won't work with a web app though as each page will come from a
different connection in the available pool (or created for each page)
meaning you will loose the cursor between pages.
I would think you want to look at having a sort column that has a random
number in it that is used for sorting.
mysortcol integer default random()
or maybe update the column a couple of times a day to keep the variety
you seem to be after.
----- Original Message -----
From: Andreas Kretschmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 12:27:42 PM GMT-0500 US/Eastern
Subject: Re: [SQL] consistent random order
Jeff Herrin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb:
I am returning results ordered randomly using 'order by random()'. My issue has
to do with page numbers in our web application. When I hit the 2nd page and
retrieve results with an offset, ordering by random() isn't really what I want
since I will often receive results that were on the 1st page (they get re-
randomized).
I'm looking for a way to order in a controled random order. Maybe a UDF.
I think you are searching for CURSORs.
18:25 < akretschmer> ??cursor
18:25 < rtfm_please> For information about cursor
18:25 < rtfm_please> see
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/plpgsql-cursors.html
18:25 < rtfm_please> or
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-declare.html
With a CURSOR, you get one result-set and can walk through this result.
Andreas
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Shane Ambler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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