What are some alternative methods to achieve a random result in a MySQL query in PHP if ORDER BY RAND() is not working?
When using ORDER BY RAND() in a MySQL query in PHP, it can be inefficient for large datasets as it needs to generate a random number for each row before sorting. An alternative method to achieve a random result is to use a combination of MySQL RAND() function and ORDER BY clause with a seed value. By providing a seed value, you can get a consistent random result without the performance overhead of ORDER BY RAND().
// Generate a random seed value
$seed = rand();
// Execute the MySQL query with a seed value for random order
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name ORDER BY RAND($seed)";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
// Fetch and process the results
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
// Process each row
}
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