Newbie needs help with query

Hi,

Is there a query which will select x random unique records out of all records
and sort them randomly, but if all records is smaller than x then it chooses
all the records and sorts them randomly.

e.g choose 3 random unique records out of all records (20) and sort them
randomly (5,1,14) , but if there are only 2 records it chooses the 2 records
and sorts them randomly (2,1).

Thank you in advance,

Raj (Newbie)

raj <raj@nospam.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Is there a query which will select x random unique records out of all
> records
> and sort them randomly, but if all records is smaller than x then it
> chooses
> all the records and sorts them randomly.
>
> e.g choose 3 random unique records out of all records (20) and sort them
> randomly (5,1,14) , but if there are only 2 records it chooses the 2
> records
> and sorts them randomly (2,1).

Hmmmz, why didn't my reply show up? Retry:
Uniqueness depends on the table.

SELECT * FROM tablename ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT max_number

--
Rik Wasmus
Posted on Usenet, not any forum you might see this in.
Ask Smart Questions: http://tinyurl.com/anel

Thanks for the answer Rik.

Sorry about the crosspost. Won't happen again. Will read up on crosspost on
google now.

Raj

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 08:31:17 +0000, Rik wrote
(in article <op.tordyf0jqnv3q9@misant>):

> raj <raj@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Is there a query which will select x random unique records out of all
>> records
>> and sort them randomly, but if all records is smaller than x then it
>> chooses
>> all the records and sorts them randomly.
>>
>> e.g choose 3 random unique records out of all records (20) and sort them
>> randomly (5,1,14) , but if there are only 2 records it chooses the 2
>> records
>> and sorts them randomly (2,1).
>
> Hmmmz, why didn't my reply show up? Retry:
> Uniqueness depends on the table.
>
> SELECT * FROM tablename ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT max_number
>
>