Related
I have a script that makes a union with different tables of my database.
I need to show the result with pagination to make it more readable to the user.
This is my code:
//Fetch
foreach($query_info->result() as $info){
//I'm going to create a query for each row i get from the db
$query [] = (' (
SELECT
'.$info->slug.'_dog.`name`,
`age`,
'.$info->slug.'_breed.`name` as breed,
`sex`,
`link`,
`sterilized`,
\''.$info->slug.'\' as prefix
FROM
'.$info->slug.'_dog,
'.$info->slug.'_breed
WHERE
'.$info->slug.'_dog.breed = '.$info->slug.'_breed.id
AND
'.$info->slug.'_dog.type = '.$type.'
)';
}
//implode different UNION
$query_final = implode(" UNION ",$query);
As you can see the the query could be very big.
How can I paginate?
My second option is make a full View with all the result of the tables, about 10-20 tables...
Which is faster for the database? the "big" UNION or a View?
I don't know which is faster, but to do the UNION, you can add an offset and limit to the end of the total query for your pagination. In only the first query, you can add SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS in the select. Something like this: (Note that there is no comma after SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS)
(SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS column1, column2 FROM etc...) UNION (SELECT column1, column2 FROM etc...) LIMIT 0,10
After you have ran the query, immediately run this query:
SELECT FOUND_ROWS();
It will return the total records like there was no LIMIT on your query. So basically you do not have to run the query again to count the results.
For creating the rest of the pagination, you can use CI it's own pagination library:
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/libraries/pagination.html
// Edit:
For returning data from the model, you could use something like this:
$results['data'] = $this->db->query($sql)->result_array();
$total = $this->db->query('SELECT FOUND_ROWS() as total')->row_array();
$results['total'] = $total['total'];
return $results;
It can probably be optimized a bit more.
I would like to count the total number of rows returned by the following query:
SELECT table1.*, COUNT(table2.fk) * (100/18) AS 'number'
FROM table1 INNER JOIN table2 ON table1.pk = table2.fk
WHERE table1.Street LIKE '$Street%'
AND table1.City LIKE '$City%'
AND table1.Zip LIKE '%$Zip'
AND table1.DOBY LIKE '%$DOBY'
AND table1.DOBM LIKE '%$DOBM'
AND table1.DOBD LIKE '%$DOBD'
AND table1.Gender LIKE '$gender%'
AND table2.year>= 2004
AND table2.type IN ('AA', 'AB', 'AC')
GROUP BY table2.fk
HAVING (COUNT(table2.fk) * (100/18)) >= '$activity'
ORDER BY DOBY, DOBM, DOBD ASC
The query counts the number or times the primary key of table1 occurs as the foreign key of table2, and calculates a percentage ('number') based on a fixed amount. It works well enough, but I'm having trouble getting the total amount of records found for my pagination script.
I would appreciate it if anyone can offer some suggestions or solutions.
u can do SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS (google for exact syntax)
And then use SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS total
Going with what Itay Moav says, a programming language should have a function for the found_rows function. As per the function documentation, it returns the number of rows of a SELECT statement with a LIMIT keyword if the LIMIT keyword wasn't there.
If it doesn't, you can just make another SELECT query to the database: SELECT FOUND_ROWS();. It will return the same information.
I have an existing mysql query that I need to add to and I'm not sure how to go about it.
Here is my current sql query.
SELECT tbl_brokerage_names.brokerage_id, tbl_brokerage_names.short_name,
b.indication, b.max_indication
FROM tbl_brokerage_names
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT * FROM tbl_recommendation_brokerages
WHERE recommendation_id = {$_GET['id']}
) b ON (tbl_brokerage_names.brokerage_id = b.brokerage_id)
ORDER BY tbl_brokerage_names.short_name ASC
Here is the query that I need to work into the previous query.
SELECT * , COUNT( * )
FROM tbl_streetaccounts
JOIN tbl_brokerage_names
WHERE tbl_brokerage_names.brokerage_id = tbl_streetaccounts.brokerage_id
Basically I need to return a count, so I need to combine these two queries.
You should run these as two separate queries.
The COUNT(*) query will return a single row, so there's no way to "combine" it with the first query while preserving the multi-row result of the first query.
Also, when you SELECT *, COUNT(*) you will get columns from some arbitrary row.
By the way, you have a glaring SQL injection vulnerability. Don't interpolate $_GET parameters directly in your SQL query. Instead, coerce it to an integer:
<?php
$id = (int) $_GET['id'];
$sql = "SELECT ... WHERE recommendation_id = {$id}";
Like #Bill said, you cannot get the count in every row without really weird syntax, but you can get an overall count using GROUP BY ... WITH ROLLUP.
e.g.:
<?php
$id = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['id']); //works with anything, not just numbers
$query = "
SELECT tbl_brokerage_names.brokerage_id
, tbl_brokerage_names.short_name
, b.indication
, b.max_indication
, count(*) as rowcount
FROM tbl_brokerage_names
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT * FROM tbl_recommendation_brokerages
WHERE recommendation_id = '$id' //The single quotes are essential for safety!
) b ON (tbl_brokerage_names.brokerage_id = b.brokerage_id)
GROUP BY tbl_brokerage_names.brokerage_id WITH ROLLUP
ORDER BY tbl_brokerage_names.short_name ASC
";
The GROUP BY .. WITH ROLLUP will add an extra line to the result with all NULL's for the non aggregated columns and a grand total count.
If you have any lines where rowcount > 0 then you need to add extra clauses from table b to the group by clause to prevent MySQL from hiding arbitrary rows.
Table tbl_brokerage_names is already fully defined because you are grouping by the primary key.
What is a fast way to select a random row from a large mysql table?
I'm working in php, but I'm interested in any solution even if it's in another language.
Grab all the id's, pick a random one from it, and retrieve the full row.
If you know the id's are sequential without holes, you can just grab the max and calculate a random id.
If there are holes here and there but mostly sequential values, and you don't care about a slightly skewed randomness, grab the max value, calculate an id, and select the first row with an id equal to or above the one you calculated. The reason for the skewing is that id's following such holes will have a higher chance of being picked than ones that follow another id.
If you order by random, you're going to have a terrible table-scan on your hands, and the word quick doesn't apply to such a solution.
Don't do that, nor should you order by a GUID, it has the same problem.
I knew there had to be a way to do it in a single query in a fast way. And here it is:
A fast way without involvement of external code, kudos to
http://jan.kneschke.de/projects/mysql/order-by-rand/
SELECT name
FROM random AS r1 JOIN
(SELECT (RAND() *
(SELECT MAX(id)
FROM random)) AS id)
AS r2
WHERE r1.id >= r2.id
ORDER BY r1.id ASC
LIMIT 1;
MediaWiki uses an interesting trick (for Wikipedia's Special:Random feature): the table with the articles has an extra column with a random number (generated when the article is created). To get a random article, generate a random number and get the article with the next larger or smaller (don't recall which) value in the random number column. With an index, this can be very fast. (And MediaWiki is written in PHP and developed for MySQL.)
This approach can cause a problem if the resulting numbers are badly distributed; IIRC, this has been fixed on MediaWiki, so if you decide to do it this way you should take a look at the code to see how it's currently done (probably they periodically regenerate the random number column).
Here's a solution that runs fairly quickly, and it gets a better random distribution without depending on id values being contiguous or starting at 1.
SET #r := (SELECT ROUND(RAND() * (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mytable)));
SET #sql := CONCAT('SELECT * FROM mytable LIMIT ', #r, ', 1');
PREPARE stmt1 FROM #sql;
EXECUTE stmt1;
Maybe you could do something like:
SELECT * FROM table
WHERE id=
(FLOOR(RAND() *
(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table)
)
);
This is assuming your ID numbers are all sequential with no gaps.
Add a column containing a calculated random value to each row, and use that in the ordering clause, limiting to one result upon selection. This works out faster than having the table scan that ORDER BY RANDOM() causes.
Update: You still need to calculate some random value prior to issuing the SELECT statement upon retrieval, of course, e.g.
SELECT * FROM `foo` WHERE `foo_rand` >= {some random value} LIMIT 1
There is another way to produce random rows using only a query and without order by rand().
It involves User Defined Variables.
See how to produce random rows from a table
In order to find random rows from a table, don’t use ORDER BY RAND() because it forces MySQL to do a full file sort and only then to retrieve the limit rows number required. In order to avoid this full file sort, use the RAND() function only at the where clause. It will stop as soon as it reaches to the required number of rows.
See
http://www.rndblog.com/how-to-select-random-rows-in-mysql/
if you don't delete row in this table, the most efficient way is:
(if you know the mininum id just skip it)
SELECT MIN(id) AS minId, MAX(id) AS maxId FROM table WHERE 1
$randId=mt_rand((int)$row['minId'], (int)$row['maxId']);
SELECT id,name,... FROM table WHERE id=$randId LIMIT 1
I see here a lot of solution. One or two seems ok but other solutions have some constraints. But the following solution will work for all situation
select a.* from random_data a, (select max(id)*rand() randid from random_data) b
where a.id >= b.randid limit 1;
Here, id, don't need to be sequential. It could be any primary key/unique/auto increment column. Please see the following Fastest way to select a random row from a big MySQL table
Thanks
Zillur
- www.techinfobest.com
For selecting multiple random rows from a given table (say 'words'), our team came up with this beauty:
SELECT * FROM
`words` AS r1 JOIN
(SELECT MAX(`WordID`) as wid_c FROM `words`) as tmp1
WHERE r1.WordID >= (SELECT (RAND() * tmp1.wid_c) AS id) LIMIT n
The classic "SELECT id FROM table ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1" is actually OK.
See the follow excerpt from the MySQL manual:
If you use LIMIT row_count with ORDER BY, MySQL ends the sorting as soon as it has found the first row_count rows of the sorted result, rather than sorting the entire result.
With a order yo will do a full scan table.
Its best if you do a select count(*) and later get a random row=rownum between 0 and the last registry
An easy but slow way would be (good for smallish tables)
SELECT * from TABLE order by RAND() LIMIT 1
In pseudo code:
sql "select id from table"
store result in list
n = random(size of list)
sql "select * from table where id=" + list[n]
This assumes that id is a unique (primary) key.
Take a look at this link by Jan Kneschke or this SO answer as they both discuss the same question. The SO answer goes over various options also and has some good suggestions depending on your needs. Jan goes over all the various options and the performance characteristics of each. He ends up with the following for the most optimized method by which to do this within a MySQL select:
SELECT name
FROM random AS r1 JOIN
(SELECT (RAND() *
(SELECT MAX(id)
FROM random)) AS id)
AS r2
WHERE r1.id >= r2.id
ORDER BY r1.id ASC
LIMIT 1;
HTH,
-Dipin
I'm a bit new to SQL but how about generating a random number in PHP and using
SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE primary_key >= $randNr
this doesn't solve the problem with holes in the table.
But here's a twist on lassevks suggestion:
SELECT primary_key FROM the_table
Use mysql_num_rows() in PHP create a random number based on the above result:
SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE primary_key = rand_number
On a side note just how slow is SELECT * FROM the_table:
Creating a random number based on mysql_num_rows() and then moving the data pointer to that point mysql_data_seek(). Just how slow will this be on large tables with say a million rows?
I ran into the problem where my IDs were not sequential. What I came up with this.
SELECT * FROM products WHERE RAND()<=(5/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM products)) LIMIT 1
The rows returned are approximately 5, but I limit it to 1.
If you want to add another WHERE clause it becomes a bit more interesting. Say you want to search for products on discount.
SELECT * FROM products WHERE RAND()<=(100/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM pt_products)) AND discount<.2 LIMIT 1
What you have to do is make sure you are returning enough result which is why I have it set to 100. Having a WHERE discount<.2 clause in the subquery was 10x slower, so it's better to return more results and limit.
Use the below query to get the random row
SELECT user_firstname ,
COUNT(DISTINCT usr_fk_id) cnt
FROM userdetails
GROUP BY usr_fk_id
ORDER BY cnt ASC
LIMIT 1
In my case my table has an id as primary key, auto-increment with no gaps, so I can use COUNT(*) or MAX(id) to get the number of rows.
I made this script to test the fastest operation:
logTime();
query("SELECT COUNT(id) FROM tbl");
logTime();
query("SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl");
logTime();
query("SELECT id FROM tbl ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1");
logTime();
The results are:
Count: 36.8418693542479 ms
Max: 0.241041183472 ms
Order: 0.216960906982 ms
Answer with the order method:
SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * (
SELECT id FROM tbl ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1
)) n FROM tbl LIMIT 1
...
SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE id = $result;
I have used this and the job was done
the reference from here
SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE RAND()<(SELECT ((30/COUNT(*))*10) FROM myTable) ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 30;
Create a Function to do this most likely the best answer and most fastest answer here!
Pros - Works even with Gaps and extremely fast.
<?
$sqlConnect = mysqli_connect('localhost','username','password','database');
function rando($data,$find,$max = '0'){
global $sqlConnect; // Set as mysqli connection variable, fetches variable outside of function set as GLOBAL
if($data == 's1'){
$query = mysqli_query($sqlConnect, "SELECT * FROM `yourtable` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT {$find},1");
$fetched_data = mysqli_fetch_assoc($query);
if(mysqli_num_rows($fetched_data>0){
return $fetch_$data;
}else{
rando('','',$max); // Start Over the results returned nothing
}
}else{
if($max != '0'){
$irand = rand(0,$max);
rando('s1',$irand,$max); // Start rando with new random ID to fetch
}else{
$query = mysqli_query($sqlConnect, "SELECT `id` FROM `yourtable` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT 0,1");
$fetched_data = mysqli_fetch_assoc($query);
$max = $fetched_data['id'];
$irand = rand(1,$max);
rando('s1',$irand,$max); // Runs rando against the random ID we have selected if data exist will return
}
}
}
$your_data = rando(); // Returns listing data for a random entry as a ASSOC ARRAY
?>
Please keep in mind this code as not been tested but is a working concept to return random entries even with gaps.. As long as the gaps are not huge enough to cause a load time issue.
Quick and dirty method:
SET #COUNTER=SELECT COUNT(*) FROM your_table;
SELECT PrimaryKey
FROM your_table
LIMIT 1 OFFSET (RAND() * #COUNTER);
The complexity of the first query is O(1) for MyISAM tables.
The second query accompanies a table full scan. Complexity = O(n)
Dirty and quick method:
Keep a separate table for this purpose only. You should also insert the same rows to this table whenever inserting to the original table. Assumption: No DELETEs.
CREATE TABLE Aux(
MyPK INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
PrimaryKey INT
);
SET #MaxPK = (SELECT MAX(MyPK) FROM Aux);
SET #RandPK = CAST(RANDOM() * #MaxPK, INT)
SET #PrimaryKey = (SELECT PrimaryKey FROM Aux WHERE MyPK = #RandPK);
If DELETEs are allowed,
SET #delta = CAST(#RandPK/10, INT);
SET #PrimaryKey = (SELECT PrimaryKey
FROM Aux
WHERE MyPK BETWEEN #RandPK - #delta AND #RandPK + #delta
LIMIT 1);
The overall complexity is O(1).
SELECT DISTINCT * FROM yourTable WHERE 4 = 4 LIMIT 1;
What is a fast way to select a random row from a large mysql table?
I'm working in php, but I'm interested in any solution even if it's in another language.
Grab all the id's, pick a random one from it, and retrieve the full row.
If you know the id's are sequential without holes, you can just grab the max and calculate a random id.
If there are holes here and there but mostly sequential values, and you don't care about a slightly skewed randomness, grab the max value, calculate an id, and select the first row with an id equal to or above the one you calculated. The reason for the skewing is that id's following such holes will have a higher chance of being picked than ones that follow another id.
If you order by random, you're going to have a terrible table-scan on your hands, and the word quick doesn't apply to such a solution.
Don't do that, nor should you order by a GUID, it has the same problem.
I knew there had to be a way to do it in a single query in a fast way. And here it is:
A fast way without involvement of external code, kudos to
http://jan.kneschke.de/projects/mysql/order-by-rand/
SELECT name
FROM random AS r1 JOIN
(SELECT (RAND() *
(SELECT MAX(id)
FROM random)) AS id)
AS r2
WHERE r1.id >= r2.id
ORDER BY r1.id ASC
LIMIT 1;
MediaWiki uses an interesting trick (for Wikipedia's Special:Random feature): the table with the articles has an extra column with a random number (generated when the article is created). To get a random article, generate a random number and get the article with the next larger or smaller (don't recall which) value in the random number column. With an index, this can be very fast. (And MediaWiki is written in PHP and developed for MySQL.)
This approach can cause a problem if the resulting numbers are badly distributed; IIRC, this has been fixed on MediaWiki, so if you decide to do it this way you should take a look at the code to see how it's currently done (probably they periodically regenerate the random number column).
Here's a solution that runs fairly quickly, and it gets a better random distribution without depending on id values being contiguous or starting at 1.
SET #r := (SELECT ROUND(RAND() * (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mytable)));
SET #sql := CONCAT('SELECT * FROM mytable LIMIT ', #r, ', 1');
PREPARE stmt1 FROM #sql;
EXECUTE stmt1;
Maybe you could do something like:
SELECT * FROM table
WHERE id=
(FLOOR(RAND() *
(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table)
)
);
This is assuming your ID numbers are all sequential with no gaps.
Add a column containing a calculated random value to each row, and use that in the ordering clause, limiting to one result upon selection. This works out faster than having the table scan that ORDER BY RANDOM() causes.
Update: You still need to calculate some random value prior to issuing the SELECT statement upon retrieval, of course, e.g.
SELECT * FROM `foo` WHERE `foo_rand` >= {some random value} LIMIT 1
There is another way to produce random rows using only a query and without order by rand().
It involves User Defined Variables.
See how to produce random rows from a table
In order to find random rows from a table, don’t use ORDER BY RAND() because it forces MySQL to do a full file sort and only then to retrieve the limit rows number required. In order to avoid this full file sort, use the RAND() function only at the where clause. It will stop as soon as it reaches to the required number of rows.
See
http://www.rndblog.com/how-to-select-random-rows-in-mysql/
if you don't delete row in this table, the most efficient way is:
(if you know the mininum id just skip it)
SELECT MIN(id) AS minId, MAX(id) AS maxId FROM table WHERE 1
$randId=mt_rand((int)$row['minId'], (int)$row['maxId']);
SELECT id,name,... FROM table WHERE id=$randId LIMIT 1
I see here a lot of solution. One or two seems ok but other solutions have some constraints. But the following solution will work for all situation
select a.* from random_data a, (select max(id)*rand() randid from random_data) b
where a.id >= b.randid limit 1;
Here, id, don't need to be sequential. It could be any primary key/unique/auto increment column. Please see the following Fastest way to select a random row from a big MySQL table
Thanks
Zillur
- www.techinfobest.com
For selecting multiple random rows from a given table (say 'words'), our team came up with this beauty:
SELECT * FROM
`words` AS r1 JOIN
(SELECT MAX(`WordID`) as wid_c FROM `words`) as tmp1
WHERE r1.WordID >= (SELECT (RAND() * tmp1.wid_c) AS id) LIMIT n
The classic "SELECT id FROM table ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1" is actually OK.
See the follow excerpt from the MySQL manual:
If you use LIMIT row_count with ORDER BY, MySQL ends the sorting as soon as it has found the first row_count rows of the sorted result, rather than sorting the entire result.
With a order yo will do a full scan table.
Its best if you do a select count(*) and later get a random row=rownum between 0 and the last registry
An easy but slow way would be (good for smallish tables)
SELECT * from TABLE order by RAND() LIMIT 1
In pseudo code:
sql "select id from table"
store result in list
n = random(size of list)
sql "select * from table where id=" + list[n]
This assumes that id is a unique (primary) key.
Take a look at this link by Jan Kneschke or this SO answer as they both discuss the same question. The SO answer goes over various options also and has some good suggestions depending on your needs. Jan goes over all the various options and the performance characteristics of each. He ends up with the following for the most optimized method by which to do this within a MySQL select:
SELECT name
FROM random AS r1 JOIN
(SELECT (RAND() *
(SELECT MAX(id)
FROM random)) AS id)
AS r2
WHERE r1.id >= r2.id
ORDER BY r1.id ASC
LIMIT 1;
HTH,
-Dipin
I'm a bit new to SQL but how about generating a random number in PHP and using
SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE primary_key >= $randNr
this doesn't solve the problem with holes in the table.
But here's a twist on lassevks suggestion:
SELECT primary_key FROM the_table
Use mysql_num_rows() in PHP create a random number based on the above result:
SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE primary_key = rand_number
On a side note just how slow is SELECT * FROM the_table:
Creating a random number based on mysql_num_rows() and then moving the data pointer to that point mysql_data_seek(). Just how slow will this be on large tables with say a million rows?
I ran into the problem where my IDs were not sequential. What I came up with this.
SELECT * FROM products WHERE RAND()<=(5/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM products)) LIMIT 1
The rows returned are approximately 5, but I limit it to 1.
If you want to add another WHERE clause it becomes a bit more interesting. Say you want to search for products on discount.
SELECT * FROM products WHERE RAND()<=(100/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM pt_products)) AND discount<.2 LIMIT 1
What you have to do is make sure you are returning enough result which is why I have it set to 100. Having a WHERE discount<.2 clause in the subquery was 10x slower, so it's better to return more results and limit.
Use the below query to get the random row
SELECT user_firstname ,
COUNT(DISTINCT usr_fk_id) cnt
FROM userdetails
GROUP BY usr_fk_id
ORDER BY cnt ASC
LIMIT 1
In my case my table has an id as primary key, auto-increment with no gaps, so I can use COUNT(*) or MAX(id) to get the number of rows.
I made this script to test the fastest operation:
logTime();
query("SELECT COUNT(id) FROM tbl");
logTime();
query("SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl");
logTime();
query("SELECT id FROM tbl ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1");
logTime();
The results are:
Count: 36.8418693542479 ms
Max: 0.241041183472 ms
Order: 0.216960906982 ms
Answer with the order method:
SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * (
SELECT id FROM tbl ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1
)) n FROM tbl LIMIT 1
...
SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE id = $result;
I have used this and the job was done
the reference from here
SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE RAND()<(SELECT ((30/COUNT(*))*10) FROM myTable) ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 30;
Create a Function to do this most likely the best answer and most fastest answer here!
Pros - Works even with Gaps and extremely fast.
<?
$sqlConnect = mysqli_connect('localhost','username','password','database');
function rando($data,$find,$max = '0'){
global $sqlConnect; // Set as mysqli connection variable, fetches variable outside of function set as GLOBAL
if($data == 's1'){
$query = mysqli_query($sqlConnect, "SELECT * FROM `yourtable` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT {$find},1");
$fetched_data = mysqli_fetch_assoc($query);
if(mysqli_num_rows($fetched_data>0){
return $fetch_$data;
}else{
rando('','',$max); // Start Over the results returned nothing
}
}else{
if($max != '0'){
$irand = rand(0,$max);
rando('s1',$irand,$max); // Start rando with new random ID to fetch
}else{
$query = mysqli_query($sqlConnect, "SELECT `id` FROM `yourtable` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT 0,1");
$fetched_data = mysqli_fetch_assoc($query);
$max = $fetched_data['id'];
$irand = rand(1,$max);
rando('s1',$irand,$max); // Runs rando against the random ID we have selected if data exist will return
}
}
}
$your_data = rando(); // Returns listing data for a random entry as a ASSOC ARRAY
?>
Please keep in mind this code as not been tested but is a working concept to return random entries even with gaps.. As long as the gaps are not huge enough to cause a load time issue.
Quick and dirty method:
SET #COUNTER=SELECT COUNT(*) FROM your_table;
SELECT PrimaryKey
FROM your_table
LIMIT 1 OFFSET (RAND() * #COUNTER);
The complexity of the first query is O(1) for MyISAM tables.
The second query accompanies a table full scan. Complexity = O(n)
Dirty and quick method:
Keep a separate table for this purpose only. You should also insert the same rows to this table whenever inserting to the original table. Assumption: No DELETEs.
CREATE TABLE Aux(
MyPK INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
PrimaryKey INT
);
SET #MaxPK = (SELECT MAX(MyPK) FROM Aux);
SET #RandPK = CAST(RANDOM() * #MaxPK, INT)
SET #PrimaryKey = (SELECT PrimaryKey FROM Aux WHERE MyPK = #RandPK);
If DELETEs are allowed,
SET #delta = CAST(#RandPK/10, INT);
SET #PrimaryKey = (SELECT PrimaryKey
FROM Aux
WHERE MyPK BETWEEN #RandPK - #delta AND #RandPK + #delta
LIMIT 1);
The overall complexity is O(1).
SELECT DISTINCT * FROM yourTable WHERE 4 = 4 LIMIT 1;