我改进了@Riedsio的答案。这是我在一个有间隙的大型均匀分布表上能找到的最有效的查询(测试从一个有> 2.6B行的表中获得1000个随机行)。

(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max := (SELECT MAX(id) FROM table)) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
(SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1)

让我来解释一下发生了什么。

(SELECT MAX(id) FROM table) 我在计算并保存最大值。对于非常大的表，每次需要一行时计算MAX(id)都会有轻微的开销 SELECT FLOOR(rand() * @max) + 1 as rand) 获取一个随机id SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN(… 这就填补了空白。基本上，如果你在间隙中随机选择一个数字，它就会选择下一个id。假设间隙是均匀分布的，这应该不是问题。

进行联合可以帮助您将所有内容放入一个查询中，从而避免进行多个查询。它还可以节省计算MAX(id)的开销。根据您的应用程序，这可能非常重要，也可能无关紧要。

注意，这只获取id，并以随机顺序获取它们。如果你想做更高级的事情，我建议你这样做:

SELECT t.id, t.name -- etc, etc
FROM table t
INNER JOIN (
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max := (SELECT MAX(id) FROM table)) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1) UNION
    (SELECT id FROM table INNER JOIN (SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * @max) + 1 as rand) r on id > rand LIMIT 1)
) x ON x.id = t.id
ORDER BY t.id

我想这是最好的办法了。

SELECT id, id * RAND( ) AS random_no, first_name, last_name
FROM user
ORDER BY random_no

以下内容应该是快速的，公正的，独立于id列的。但是，它不能保证返回的行数与请求的行数匹配。

SELECT *
FROM t
WHERE RAND() < (SELECT 10 / COUNT(*) FROM t)

解释:假设你想要100行中的10行，那么每一行都有1/10的概率被选中，这可以通过WHERE RAND() < 0.1来实现。这种方法不能保证有10行;但是如果查询运行了足够多的次数，那么每次执行的平均行数将在10左右，并且表中的每一行都将被均匀地选择。

您可以轻松地使用带限制的随机偏移量

PREPARE stm from 'select * from table limit 10 offset ?';
SET @total = (select count(*) from table);
SET @_offset = FLOOR(RAND() * @total);
EXECUTE stm using @_offset;

您还可以像这样应用where子句

PREPARE stm from 'select * from table where available=true limit 10 offset ?';
SET @total = (select count(*) from table where available=true);
SET @_offset = FLOOR(RAND() * @total);
EXECUTE stm using @_offset;

在600,000行(700MB)表查询执行上的测试花费了大约0.016秒的硬盘驱动器时间。

EDIT:偏移量可能取接近表末尾的值，这将导致select语句返回更少的行(或者可能只有一行)，为了避免这种情况，我们可以在声明偏移量后再次检查，如下所示

SET @rows_count = 10;
PREPARE stm from "select * from table where available=true limit ? offset ?";
SET @total = (select count(*) from table where available=true);
SET @_offset = FLOOR(RAND() * @total);
SET @_offset = (SELECT IF(@total-@_offset<@rows_count,@_offset-@rows_count,@_offset));
SET @_offset = (SELECT IF(@_offset<0,0,@_offset));
EXECUTE stm using @rows_count,@_offset;

使用这个查询:

select floor(RAND() * (SELECT MAX(key) FROM table)) from table limit 10

查询时间:0.016秒

这里有一个改变游戏规则的方法，可能对许多人有帮助;

我有一个有200k行的表，有连续的id，我需要选择N个随机行，所以我选择根据表中最大的id生成随机值，我创建了这个脚本来找出哪个是最快的操作:

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();

结果如下:

计数:36.8418693542479毫秒 Max: 0.241041183472 ms 订单:0.216960906982毫秒

根据这个结果，order desc是得到最大id的最快操作， 以下是我对这个问题的回答:

SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(n SEPARATOR ',') g FROM (
    SELECT FLOOR(RAND() * (
        SELECT id FROM tbl ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1
    )) n FROM tbl LIMIT 10) a

...
SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE id IN ($result);

供您参考:从一个200k表中随机获得10行，我花了1.78 ms(包括php方面的所有操作)