No, I wouldn't do that. What if another quote gets deleted. The new assigned QuoteID would be 6 and your solution wouldn't work.
This would: /* selecting a random record, where n = 1. Works fine on small tables */ mysql> SELECT value FROM table ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT n; /* selecting a random record. This is good on large tables if numbering sequence is used */ mysql> SET @val = FLOOR(RAND() * n) + 1; mysql> SELECT value FROM table WHERE ID = @val; -----Original Message----- From: Alex [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 12:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PHP] Re: Random Numbers.. Theheadsage wrote: > Hey, > > I've got a script which used to generate a random quote. It worked fine > untill this problem occurred.. > > Say we have 4 quotes with QuoteID's of 1 through to 4 > The script would grab a number of rows, and generate a random number > between 1 and this value (being 4 in this case) This worked fine untill, > one of the quotes was removed and another added, leaving 4 quotes once > again, but the last one had an ID of 5. The problem is the Random number > generated is between 1 and 4, so the final quote is never shown.. > > I tried using the RAND() function in the MySQL statement it's self, but > it's not random enough... > > Then I thought of doing this: > > Select all the Quote ID's from the DB. > Store them in an Array. > Generate a random number between 1 and the last ID. > If the Random Number matches a Quote ID, then display the quote, > otherwise Generate another > > But I couldn't get the code to work. Any suggestions on either how to > write the above, or made the MySQL RAND() function, more random? how about if ($randnumber == 4) $randnumber++; ? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
