Random Selection with Where

[Pezmc]

In my database I have a hundred or so items layed out like this,

id   name   shown
1   Pez   yes
2   Giles  no
3   Bob   yes
etc...

I am trying to randomly select one of the entries where shown is yes.
What is an easy way to do this? I have to be able to expand the database and it still work.

So someone clicks give me a name and the php randomly choses a name from the database but only out of ones that shown is == to yes.
However users will be able to add their name to the database, then a admin will alow the name to be shown (to prevent abuse) . And the new name will be added to the list of randomly choosable names.

Thanks,

[suntra]

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mathematical-functions.html

ORDER BY RAND() combined with LIMIT is useful for selecting a random sample from a set of rows:

mysql> SELECT * FROM table1, table2 WHERE a=b AND c<d -> ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1000;

[Pezmc]

Thanks I have now used that, 🙂