Re: some random() clarification needed - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Marc Millas
Subject Re: some random() clarification needed
Date
Msg-id CADX_1aYt+YsTxQmKRB4AH6VahmCcuWYr_o=Go5HBqPPtZLX_ig@mail.gmail.com
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In response to Re: some random() clarification needed  ("David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-general
Ok, thanks for the clarification. 

Marc MILLAS
Senior Architect
+33607850334



On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 5:24 PM David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:15 AM Marc Millas <marc.millas@mokadb.com> wrote:
select id, prenom from prenoms where id=ceiling(random()*2582);

expecting to get, allways, one line.
But its not the case.
around 15% of time I get 0 lines which is already quite strange to me.
but 10% of time, I get a random number of lines, until now up to 4.
even weirder (to me !)

so, can someone please clarify ?


You are basically asking:

For each row in my table compare the id to some random number and if they match return that row, otherwise skip it.  The random number being compared to is different for each row because random() is volatile and thus evaluated for each row.

David J.

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