Help with a tricky function...

[Ange52]

Hello all!

I'd like to create a function, and I just need some help to get it started.

The goal for this function will be to run a mysql query, get the results, and then (here's the tricky part) randomize the order of the rows. If possible, I'd like to pass $result variable from the query into this function, and end up with the result rows in a random order that I can print out fairly easily.

I just don't even know where to start with this one, though I imagine it will involve creating a new, empty multidimensional array, then splicing random rows out of the original $result array, and putting them into the new array.

All thoughts are welcome. Thanks!
-Ange52

[Drakla]

You could either use ORDER BY RAND() in your query, or use [man]shuffle[/man] on the array of results when you've sucked them all out.

[Ange52]

Wow- that sounds so easy! I was worried that it was going to be much more complicated than that.

If I have a limit=10 clause (or something like that) in my query, will it take a random 10 out of the total number of entries that match the other specifications? Is there a way to arrange for that?

Thanks for the quick reply!
-Ange52

[kburger]

Then you should definitely ORDER BY RAND() in your query.

[Ange52]

So would this be a workable query?

SELECT * FROM table WHERE id_number='20' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 0, 10

[kburger]

Yes, assuming you want 10 random rows from you table that have an id_number of '20'.

The LIMIT 0, 10 could be changed to LIMIT 10.