> How many rows do you anticipate that the table will have? Have you > tested this on your server? I would have to bet that if you > have only a few K rows that speed/performance will not be an issue.
I doubt I will have more than 100. Perhaps I shouldn't worry about it, then. > The way to > enhance this is by selecting an indexed value, such as the following > where `foo` is indexed > > SELECT `foo` FROM fortunes ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1 Why does this help? From the MySQL book I have, the reason ORDER BY RAND() is slow is because "for each record in the table a random number must be generated. Then all random numbers are sorted so that the first n records can be returned. Is this correct? If so, how does selecting an indexed column help this, won't it still need to perform all those operations (generate rand-nums, then sort) regardless of the index? Jfyi the book I am referring to is "MySQL" by Michael Kofler. I'd give the Amazon link but they appear to be down at the moment. The ISBN is 1-893115-57-7 for any who want to look it up elsewhere/when amazon.com comes back up. -jb -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
