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Question

I am using MSSQL Server 2005. In my db, I have a table "customerNames" which has two columns "Id" and "Name" and approx. 1,000 results.

I am creating a functionality where I have to pick 5 customers randomly every time. Can anyone tell me how to create a query which will get random 5 rows (Id, and Name) every time when query is executed?

Accepted Answer

SELECT TOP 5 Id, Name FROM customerNames
ORDER BY NEWID()

That said, everybody seems to come to this page for the more general answer to your question:

Selecting a random row in SQL

Select a random row with MySQL:

SELECT column FROM table
ORDER BY RAND()
LIMIT 1

Select a random row with PostgreSQL:

SELECT column FROM table
ORDER BY RANDOM()
LIMIT 1

Select a random row with Microsoft SQL Server:

SELECT TOP 1 column FROM table
ORDER BY NEWID()

Select a random row with IBM DB2

SELECT column, RAND() as IDX 
FROM table 
ORDER BY IDX FETCH FIRST 1 ROWS ONLY

Select a random record with Oracle:

SELECT column FROM
( SELECT column FROM table
ORDER BY dbms_random.value )
WHERE rownum = 1

Select a random row with sqlite:

SELECT column FROM table 
ORDER BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1

Answer 2

SELECT TOP 5 Id, Name FROM customerNames ORDER BY NEWID()

Answer 3

In case someone wants a PostgreSQL solution:

select id, name
from customer
order by random()
limit 5;

Answer 4

Maybe this site will be of assistance.

For those who don't want to click through:

SELECT TOP 1 column FROM table
ORDER BY NEWID()

Answer 5

There is a nice Microsoft SQL Server 2005 specific solution here. Deals with the problem where you are working with a large result set (not the question I know).

Selecting Rows Randomly from a Large Table

Answer 6

I have found this to work best for big data.

SELECT TOP 1 Column_Name FROM dbo.Table TABLESAMPLE(1 PERCENT);

TABLESAMPLE(n ROWS) or TABLESAMPLE(n PERCENT) is random but need to add the TOP n to get the correct sample size.

Using NEWID() is very slow on large tables.

Answer 7

If you have a table with millions of rows and care about the performance, this could be a better answer:

SELECT * FROM Table1
WHERE (ABS(CAST(
  (BINARY_CHECKSUM
  (keycol1, NEWID())) as int))
  % 100) < 10

Answer 8

This is an old question, but attempting to apply a new field (either NEWID() or ORDER BY rand()) to a table with a large number of rows would be prohibitively expensive. If you have incremental, unique IDs (and do not have any holes) it will be more efficient to calculate the X # of IDs to be selected instead of applying a GUID or similar to every single row and then taking the top X # of.

DECLARE @minValue int;
DECLARE @maxValue int;
SELECT @minValue = min(id), @maxValue = max(id) from [TABLE];

DECLARE @randomId1 int, @randomId2 int, @randomId3 int, @randomId4 int, @randomId5 int
SET @randomId1 = ((@maxValue + 1) - @minValue) * Rand() + @minValue
SET @randomId2 = ((@maxValue + 1) - @minValue) * Rand() + @minValue
SET @randomId3 = ((@maxValue + 1) - @minValue) * Rand() + @minValue
SET @randomId4 = ((@maxValue + 1) - @minValue) * Rand() + @minValue
SET @randomId5 = ((@maxValue + 1) - @minValue) * Rand() + @minValue

--select @maxValue as MaxValue, @minValue as MinValue
--  , @randomId1 as SelectedId1
--  , @randomId2 as SelectedId2
--  , @randomId3 as SelectedId3
--  , @randomId4 as SelectedId4
--  , @randomId5 as SelectedId5

select * from [TABLE] el
where el.id in (@randomId1, @randomId2, @randomId3, @randomId4, @randomId5)

If you wanted to select many more rows I would look into populating a #tempTable with an ID and a bunch of rand() values then using each rand() value to scale to the min-max values. That way you do not have to define all of the @randomId1...n parameters. I've included an example below using a CTE to populate the initial table.

DECLARE @NumItems int = 100;

DECLARE @minValue int;
DECLARE @maxValue int;
SELECT @minValue = min(id), @maxValue = max(id) from [TABLE];
DECLARE @range int = @maxValue+1 - @minValue;

with cte (n) as (
   select 1 union all
   select n+1 from cte
   where n < @NumItems
)
select cast( @range * rand(cast(newid() as varbinary(100))) + @minValue as int) tp
into #Nt
from cte;

select * from #Nt ntt
inner join [TABLE] i on i.id = ntt.tp;

drop table #Nt;

Answer 9

SELECT * FROM TABLENAME ORDER BY random() LIMIT 5;

Answer 10

In order to shuffle the SQL result set, you need to use a database-specific function call.

Note that sorting a large result set using a RANDOM function might turn out to be very slow, so make sure you do that on small result sets.

If you have to shuffle a large result set and limit it afterward, then it's better to use something like the Oracle SAMPLE(N) or the TABLESAMPLE in SQL Server or PostgreSQL instead of a random function in the ORDER BY clause.

So, assuming we have the following database table:

And the following rows in the song table:

| id | artist                          | title                              |
|----|---------------------------------|------------------------------------|
| 1  | Miyagi & Эндшпиль ft. Рем Дигга | I Got Love                         |
| 2  | HAIM                            | Don't Save Me (Cyril Hahn Remix)   |
| 3  | 2Pac ft. DMX                    | Rise Of A Champion (GalilHD Remix) |
| 4  | Ed Sheeran & Passenger          | No Diggity (Kygo Remix)            |
| 5  | JP Cooper ft. Mali-Koa          | All This Love                      |