Selecting 2 random rows from SQL table

Question

What would be the fastest way to select 2 random rows from an SQL table ? (SQL only or not) I am using MySQL on PhpMyAdmin.

See this answer by Skliwz. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/191342/random-record-from-a-database-table-t-sql — Chris Albert, Sep 26 '13 at 17:21

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 26 '13 at 17:20

1

Seems like it would be:

SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 2

What you will get is two rows in database default order.

answered Sep 26 '13 at 17:20

SamA

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '13 at 17:20

0

Try this:

SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 0, 2

answered Sep 26 '13 at 17:20

Pupil

Woudln't this become noticeably slower the more tuples the table contains? – halpsb Sep 26 '13 at 17:23

2 Answers2