Question

Please note I am a beginner to this.

I have two questions:

1) How can I order the results of a query randomly.

example query:

$get_questions = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM item_bank_tb WHERE item_type=1 OR item_type=3 OR item_type=4");

2) The best method to select random rows from a table. So lets say I want to grab 10 rows at random from a table.

Many thanks,

Answer 1

SELECT * FROM item_bank_tb WHERE item_type in(1,3,4) order by rand() limit 10

Beware that order by rand() is very slow on large recordset.

EDIT. Take a look at this very interesting article that presents a different approach.

http://explainextended.com/2009/03/01/selecting-random-rows/