I remember, in 96/97, I was working on a Oracle 7 database and none of the this sample() was available. My task was to select x people out of z number of people randomly. We hired a temp, who took Dallas/Fort Worth dictionary (I was working in that area) and counted (yes counted) number of people whose last names started with A and B and so on.
We put this information into a table and then found out percentage of last names starting with A compared to the whole list for each letter. This percentage was used as weightage for each letter when choosing random samples from a list of people. Then I used this weightage and dbms_random to pick the required number of names from our database. It was fun to implement, but I feel bad for the temp who had to count the names. So, compared to that, 8i and 9i built-in features rock !! Raj ______________________________________________________ Rajendra Jamadagni MIS, ESPN Inc. Rajendra dot Jamadagni at ESPN dot com Any opinion expressed here is personal and doesn't reflect that of ESPN Inc. QOTD: Any clod can have facts, but having an opinion is an art!
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