scriptygoddessI have a random quote and also a random link on my sidebar. Since I have 99 links and 190+ quotes, it was easiest to use a MySQL db to manage it. This is the query I was using:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM blogroll ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 1";
The problem I had was that it wasn't really random. When I had about 10 links in my blogroll, I hit refresh 80 times and got the first entry EVERY TIME. It worked better when I had more entries, but I still got that first one way too often. I tried to use the mt_rand() function, but it wouldn't work in the query. I had create a variable that used mt_rand() to pick a number within my range and then call that id in the query. So when I deleted a link or added a new one, it broke.
Then I found the following on php.net:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM blogroll ORDER BY rand(" . time() . " * " . time() . ") LIMIT 1";
This works MUCH better, and it's showing a lot of links and quotes that almost never showed up before. Hope that helps someone!
