I want MySQL dbase query to display double

datona

I'm sorry if the subject is a little misleading but It's hard to put it into words.
I have a database like: VEHICLE | CLIENT | RATING

Data in the dbase are like:

What I want to do is display all the data BUT with a twist.
I want to have it display all the rows TWICE but never a row beside each other and they would be pulled by RANDOM. So say if I displayed the vehicles, it would be something like:

Celica
Magnum
F150
Astrovan
Magnum
Celica
Astrovan
F150

Is this possible???? If so, any coding help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks all in advance for your assistance.

Drakla

I'm guessing at

SELECT vehicle FROM cars UNION ALL SELECT vehicle FROM cars ORDER BY RAND();

But you might then sometimes end up with the same car next to itself.

datona

Thanks Drakla but I'm running MySQL 3.23.58 and UNION will only work on 4.xx
Any other ideas?? 😉

kburger

So, dispaly all VEHICLES, then display them again in random order? Do I understand correctly? If so, just do your normal query and display each row as they are retreived. As you're doing that, push them onto an array. When the query is done, randomize that array and iterate across it.

The only time you'd have the possibility of a repeated row would be the last row from the query and the first element from your array. If so, randomize again.

datona

kburger, sounds like a good idea but I'm scratching my head hear trying to figure out how to put it into an array and then using that.
Idea's on the coding part? 😕

kburger

pseudocode:

$vehicles = array();
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	echo "whatever you retrieved";
	$vehicles[] = $row['VEHICLE'];
}
// now randomize your $vehicles array and spit it out

shuffle()