Question

I want to grab a random sample of data out of my database using CakePHP. Here’s my function:

function categories_list() 
{   
    $this->paginate['limit'] = 6;
    $this->paginate['order'] = '';
    $this->paginate['conditions'] = '';

    // Sort Randomly Start 
    if ($this->Session->check('Category.randomSeed')) 
    { 
        $seed = $this->Session->read('Category.randomSeed'); 
    } else { 
        $seed = mt_rand(); 
        $this->Session->write('Category.randomSeed', $seed); 
    } 
    $this->paginate['order'] = sprintf('RAND(%d)', $seed); 
    // Sort Randomly End 

    $this->set('cat_ajax_items', $this->paginate('Category')); 
}

The problem is, the query that Cake sends to the DB always does this to the RAND() portion, sending MySQL into a hissy fit:

ORDER BY RAND(`1235123412341`)

Testing on a manual query, it works just fine, and returns a sample when it’s formatted like this:

ORDER BY RAND(1235123412341)

Is there any way to get Cake to back off of the autoformatting? Anything I put into that RAND() function gets dumped into string quotes.

Answer 1

Anything I put into that RAND() function gets dumped into string quotes.

No, this isn’t correct. If it used string quotes then it would work fine, however backticks aren’t string quotes. The problem is that CakePHP is quoting the number as if it were a column name. Try quoting the value using single quotes instead:

"RAND('%d')"

This should result in the following SQL being produced:

ORDER BY RAND('1235123412341')

This gives the same result as when you don’t include the quotes.