Question

I’m needing to pull 3 rows from a table for a featured section on my site. I first retrieve a list of 3 items that are sold the most from an orders table. Then I need to check to see if there are any left. If so, pull their details from the inventory table. The problem is, I always need 3. If there are not 3 items from the orders table that are still in stock, i need enough to make 3, selected from random. How can I set WHERE id IN (1, 2) and then still pull 1 random record?

Answer 1

You can use a UNION to join the records WHERE id IN (1, 2) and then the second query is your random record.

SELECT *
FROM table
WHERE id IN (1, 2)

UNION

SELECT Top 1 *
FROM table

If you provide more details about your query, then I can provide a more detailed answer.

Edit:
Based on your comment you should be able to do something this like:

SELECT * 
FROM list_cards 
WHERE card_id IN (1, 2) AND qty > 0

UNION

SELECT * 
FROM list_cards 
WHERE qty > 0

If you want to be sure you always get 3 results:

SELECT TOP 3 C.*
FROM
(
    SELECT C.*, '1' as Priority
    FROM list_cards C
    WHERE C.card_id IN (1, 2) AND qty > 0

    UNION

    SELECT C.*, '2' as Priority
    FROM list_cards C
    WHERE qty > 0
) C
ORDER BY C.Priority