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How to select question from mysql tables randomly ?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:18 am
by JosephHanh
I am working on a quiz app

image 1 shows the index.php page
image 2 shows the first question
image 3 shows the second question
image 4 shows the third question
image 5 shows the result after completing the quiz
image 6 shows the database 'quizzer' and its tables
image 7 shows the 'questions' table
image 8 shows the 'choices' table

THIS LINK CONTAIN ALL THE CODE (and images) I HAVE DONE SO FAR

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/g5ao7f5q0fe6y/quiz

1.Now my question is how to select the question RANDOMLY from 'questions' table along with 'choices' (by adding code to the existing file or create a new one).

2.If user refresh/reload the page before starting ('Start Quiz') or click 'Take Again' after finishing the quiz, the question should appear randomly.

3.Basically I want to change the order of question appearing in the browser each time I refresh.

4.My work so far is mentioned above.........Please help me with this "RANDOM" problem !!

P.S - Will it be possible, by creating a random function in PHP which will check for repeat questions in a session and check for the 'id' of the question and if it is new display it on the page.

If so what should I do and if no then how to do?

Re: How to select question from mysql tables randomly ?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 7:02 am
by Celauran
Might be easiest to pull down all the questions at once, store them in an array, shuffle it, then iterate over it.

Re: How to select question from mysql tables randomly ?

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 11:48 pm
by pbs
You can use SELECT query with ORDER BY RAND() to get random question from table

Code: Select all

SELECT * FROM questions ORDER BY RAND()
and if you want specific number of questions, then you can use LIMIT

Re: How to select question from mysql tables randomly ?

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:11 am
by JosephHanh
doesn't work that way RAND () :(

Re: How to select question from mysql tables randomly ?

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:05 am
by requinix
JosephHanh wrote:doesn't work that way RAND () :(
Sure it does.

"It doesn't work" is useless to us. Describe what's actually going wrong.