You might be able to do something like this instead:
SELECT *, id*0+RAND() AS r FROM table ORDER BY r LIMIT 5;
Check the list archives, this issue comes up quite often.
On Wed, 9 May 2001, Webmaster wrote:
> i dont follow step #3.
>
>
> At 11:42 PM 5/8/2001, Tony Shiu wrote:
> >i think it is more suitable to do it in programming level in mysql, though I
> >know there is a function is M$sql server.
> >
> >if your table schema has a unique id field, before submit a query to DB,
> >1) select count(*) from it
> >2) from the above resultset, program to draw whatever number of records you
> >want.
> >3) submit the query, select * from it where id in (your random record ids);
> >
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Webmaster" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 11:38 AM
> >Subject: SQL help
> >
> >
> >> How do I write SQL in MySQL to randomly select 5 records from a table?
> >>
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