On Saturday 06 December 2003 10:39 pm, 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...
Perhaps something like
SELECT quote FROM quotes ORDER BY RAND('.mt_rand().') LIMIT 1
>
> 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
Wow, sounds complicated. How about
shuffle($quotes);
echo $quotes[0];
but much better speed-wise to do it from the DB.
>
> 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?
um, yeah.
--
Evan Nemerson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://coeusgroup.com/en
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