I was looking for a way to order the rows randomly in a MySQL query and the solution was not easy for me to come by. I am posting the solution here in hopes of helping others.
1 2 3 | SELECT * FROM my_table ORDER BY RAND() |
RAND() returns a random floating-point value but functions to randomly order the selection of rows in the above usage.
If you combine the query with LIMIT, you will end up with a random selection of rows from your table.
1 2 3 4 | SELECT * FROM my_table ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3 |
Assuming you have more than 3 rows in your table, you will always get 3 random rows from the query.