Making A Rank System In PHP

[Mike]

Hi all.

I'm currently doing a project which involves giving "weight" to a row in a database. Basically, the more weight the row has, the more times it will be picked.

The problem, I don't know how to do what I've just said. First I was thinking about using rand(), but then realised it wouldn't really work with that.

I have run out of ideas, anyone know what I could do?

Cheers,
Mike

[Westech]

Try this (untested) :

SELECT * FROM Table ORDER BY RAND()*(1/weight) LIMIT 1;

This assumes that each row has an integer field called 'weight'. The higher the number in this field the more likely it is for the row to be selected.

[Mike]

Yup, that's it - I never knew you could use queries like that. Thanks Westech