mysql RAND doesnt seem to be so random

[fr8]

I swear I see record 1 more than any other record. I would have to say more than 50%....Infact I just refreshed the page 10 times and record 1 was 80%. I have 192 records!. Anyway to get this a little more random?

[phprock]

This is is how i use random , found it in phpnuke code. ANd it works fine.

//Find number of records

$result=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news");
$numrows=mysql_num_rows($result);
 if ($numrows>1) {
	$numrows = $numrows-1;
	mt_srand((double)microtime()*1000000);
	$rand = mt_rand(0, $numrows);
    } else {
	$rand = 0;
    }

$news=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM News  LIMIT $rand,1");

[laserlight]

That probably could be better put as:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tablename");
if (($numrows = mysql_result($result, 0)) > 0) {
	$rand = mt_rand(0, $numrows - 1);
	$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tablename LIMIT $rand, 1");
} else {
	//no data to retrieve
}

But yeah, how are you using MySQL's RAND()?

[fr8]

Thats one way to do it but it uses two queries. id like to keep it at one if possible. any ideas on rand()?

[laserlight]

From a discussion I had on a messageboard, RAND() is both poorly implemented (apparently) and inefficient when used in this way.

The COUNT(*) query should be pretty fast, so it isnt so bad using 2 queries.