Random Number

NZ_Kiwis

This is basic I would think but have not found the answer.

I want to get a random number between 1 - 30. How do i do this? then before this code I want to set the 30 as the max because depending on a SQL query it might be higher or lower...

any ideas?

TheDefender

[man]rand[/man]

$output = rand(1, 30);

then before this code I want to set the 30 as the max because depending on a SQL query it might be higher or lower...

I am not sure what you mean by this,so can you elaborate a bit more if the above wasn't what you needed...

NZ_Kiwis

TheDefender wrote:
[man]rand[/man]
$output = rand(1, 30);
I am not sure what you mean by this,so can you elaborate a bit more if the above wasn't what you needed...

Well I want to select at random, a row from my SQL table. So i was thinking of doing a SQL query count getting the numbers then selecting a number between these at random.

Or is there a better way??

TheDefender

You can actually use rand() in your query to randomly select rows.

SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 1

(This will give you a single randomly outputted row.)

Note from the MySQL manual:
RAND() is not meant to be a perfect random generator, but instead a fast way to generate ad hoc random numbers that is portable between platforms for the same MySQL version.

I've used this in the past and had very good results.