Random listing problem need help before weekend if possible

I think the problem is entirely due to the fact that you are choosing to randomly display the listings and break them up over four pages. I can't imagine there is a way to do that without seeing some repeat listings, and others to not show up at all.

It also seems like an odd decision to order them this way from a usability standpoint. Every time someone returns to the listings they are going to be in a different order, which could make it difficult for them to find something they were looking at during a prior visit. I think listing these either alphabetically, or by date_updated would make more sense.

my 2 cents

One way to do it would be to output a long list in random order and then use a javascript widget to dynamically page through the content. You'd have to find the widget though.

Another way would be to have a custom script that would run once an minute or hour, etc that would set a random value is a "sortOrder" field which you could sort on. You'd still have the issue that someone who bookmarked page 2 one day and came back another would get different results.

Another way would be to add a random number to the query url, then pass that forward through links, and sort on the calculated MD5 of a column plus that number (it would essentially give unchanging random orders to different users that could be bookmarked). It might be slow if you had lots of records though.

So it's possible, but not simple or easy.

You may want to re-examine the purpose for having a multi-page record list in random order and see if there's another way to meet the same goal (eg: have 3 random listings in a sidebar on each page, etc). Even if you get it working, users may not find it very intuitive and may get confused as to what is happening.

Hope that helps!

Hi willydoit,

I thought of a (rather advanced) way to do it. It uses a little more CPU so it might not be a good solution if you have thousands and thousands of records but may be worth a try.

Add this code above your getRecords() code to assign a random number to each user:

// set random number for this user
@session_start();
if (!@$_SESSION['randNum']) { $_SESSION['randNum'] = rand(1,1000); }
$escapedRandNum = mysql_real_escape_string( $_SESSION['randNum'] );

Add this orderBy option to your viewer code to sort in a pseudo-random way that will stay the same between page loads (it may change again after an hour or so when the users session expires or they close their browser)

'orderBy' => "MD5(CONCAT(num, '$escapedRandNum'))",

Hope that helps!

Update: Removed extra debugging line from top code block.

Thanks Dave,

I will give this a try later today if possible, as accommodation is split across different tables we are unlikely to get more than a couple of hundred records at most so we will probably be able to live with the added cpu usage, providing we can demonstrate random listings for each new viewing this will be ideal. Will let you know how we get on. Thanks for the help it is appreciated.