m3rajk — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 01:00:34 +0000

i think i understand what's happening. i'd like to make sure i do understand what's happening there.

Quote: SELECT fields

selects the feilds i want to display

Quote: FROM users

means to search by the users table

Quote: INNER JOIN stats ON users.uid=stats.uid

means to synchronise based on the uid fields

Quote: ORDER BY rand()

makes it randomly take the users on the ... for lack of a better way to think of it, the temporary table it made

Quote: LIMIT 1

makes it take just one of them.

i've never used a join before, or the rand function, which is why i want to make sure i understand what's going on

sorry about asking more questions, it's just how i do things with programming/scripting. when i ask for help, if i'm using things that are new to me i break it down and verify that i'm understanding each part, so that i know i'll be learning what's goingon correctly. then i can help others in the future

Mark Hensler — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:19:44 +0000

SELECT users.gender,stats.dob,stats.sex_pref,stats.mar_stat,stats.country
FROM users
INNER JOIN stats ON users.uid=stats.uid
ORDER BY rand()
LIMIT 1

m3rajk — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:05:20 +0000

shane: i have a database with user id numbers assigned when you sign up.

some people may delete, some may be deleted. this leaves holes.

for the front page i want to seelct a user at random and pull some information for a section.

so i want to pull a randome user between 1 and an unknown maximum.

i'm hoping to find a way to do this so that it'll change the user displayed with each load of the index.

ShaneS — Wed, 10 Sep 2003 20:51:52 +0000

Not sure why you want to generate a random ID, and not a somewhat sequential index with AUTO_INCREMENT , this will eliminate the HUMAN error aspect and always generate a unique ID.

In answer to your query results: $result['fieldname']

Quote: SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 1

?? This will only select a random user, if he uses that ID whats to say its not 3, and someone is #4, then he would be given an error is he made it a unique field, or he would have two entries under the same ID.

To get your last highest ID

SELECT id FROM users ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1

Mark Hensler — Wed, 10 Sep 2003 19:49:56 +0000

SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 1