Re: Selecting random rows efficiently

On Saturday 30 August 2003 1:08 pm, you wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Richard Jones wrote:
> > Hi,
> > i have a table of around 3 million rows from which i regularly (twice a
> > second at the moment) need to select a random row from
> >
> > currently i'm doing "order by rand() limit 1" - but i suspect this is
> > responsible for the large load on my db server - i guess that PG is doing
> > far too much work just to pick one row.
>
> If you have an int id (aka serial) column then it is simple - just pick a
> random number between 1 and currval('id_seq')...
>
> or offset rand() limit 1 perhaps?
>
> since you want random ther eis no need to bother with an order and that'll
> save a sort.

Yes, the pkey is a SERIAL but the problem is that the sequence is rather
sparse

for example, it goes something like 1 -> 5000 then 100000->100000 and then
2000000->upwards

this is due to chunks being deleted etc..

if i pick a random number for the key it will not be a random enough
distribution, because the sequence is sparse.. sometimes it will pick a key
that doesnt exist.

i'm currently reading all the keys into an array and selecting randoms from
there - but this is no good long-term as i need to refresh the array of keys
to take into account newly added rows to the table (daily)

i was hoping there was some trickery with sequences that would allow me to
easily pick a random valid sequence number..?

Thanks,
Rich.

>
> --
> Jeff Trout <jeff(at)jefftrout(dot)com>
> http://www.jefftrout.com/
> http://www.stuarthamm.net/
>
>
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