random results

[Count_Rugen]

I am new to PHP and would appreciate some assistance...
The problem i am working on involves selecting 3 random results from a search. For example, if a search yields 10 results, how am i able to select 3 of these results randomly?
I would appreciate any advice...

[bastien]

coounting the number of results

mysql_num_rows and then using the [man]rand[/man] function to create the three numbers

then use mysql_fetch_row to get at each row separately

hth

[Weedpacket]

A problem of course is if the three numbers returned by rand() contain duplicates. It's more reliable to use array_rand() instead.

You should have some unique key in your table - select all the values for that field and then use array_rand() to pick out your sample. You can get back all the sampled rows with one query if you use a WHERE clause like "id IN (...)" and put a comma-separated string of your selected ids in the ().