Laravel - Eloquent or Fluent random row

How can I select a random row using Eloquent or Fluent in Laravel framework?

I know that by using SQL, you can do order by RAND(). However, I would like to get the random row without doing a count on the number of records prior to the initial query.

Any ideas?

Laravel >= 5.2:

User::inRandomOrder()->get();

or to get the specific number of records

// 5 indicates the number of records
User::inRandomOrder()->limit(5)->get();
// get one random record
User::inRandomOrder()->first();

or using the random method for collections:

User::all()->random();
User::all()->random(10); // The amount of items you wish to receive

Laravel 4.2.7 - 5.1:

User::orderByRaw("RAND()")->get();

Laravel 4.0 - 4.2.6:

User::orderBy(DB::raw('RAND()'))->get();

Laravel 3:

User::order_by(DB::raw('RAND()'))->get();

Check this article on MySQL random rows. Laravel 5.2 supports this, for older version, there is no better solution then using RAW Queries.

edit 1: As mentioned by Double Gras, orderBy() doesn't allow anything else then ASC or DESC since this change. I updated my answer accordingly.

edit 2: Laravel 5.2 finally implements a wrapper function for this. It's called inRandomOrder().

This works just fine,

$model=Model::all()->random(1)->first();

you can also change argument in random function to get more than one record.

Note: not recommended if you have huge data as this will fetch all rows first and then returns random value.

tl;dr: It's nowadays implemented into Laravel, see "edit 3" below.

Sadly, as of today there are some caveats with the ->orderBy(DB::raw('RAND()')) proposed solution:

It isn't DB-agnostic. e.g. SQLite and PostgreSQL use RANDOM()
Even worse, this solution isn't applicable anymore since this change:

$direction = strtolower($direction) == 'asc' ? 'asc' : 'desc';

edit: Now you can use the orderByRaw() method: ->orderByRaw('RAND()'). However this is still not DB-agnostic.

FWIW, CodeIgniter implements a special RANDOM sorting direction, which is replaced with the correct grammar when building query. Also it seems to be fairly easy to implement. Looks like we have a candidate for improving Laravel :)

update: here is the issue about this on GitHub, and my pending pull request.

edit 2: Let's cut the chase. Since Laravel 5.1.18 you can add macros to the query builder:

use Illuminate\Database\Query\Builder;

Builder::macro('orderByRandom', function () {

    $randomFunctions = [
        'mysql'  => 'RAND()',
        'pgsql'  => 'RANDOM()',
        'sqlite' => 'RANDOM()',
        'sqlsrv' => 'NEWID()',
    ];

    $driver = $this->getConnection()->getDriverName();

    return $this->orderByRaw($randomFunctions[$driver]);
});

Usage:

User::where('active', 1)->orderByRandom()->limit(10)->get();

DB::table('users')->where('active', 1)->orderByRandom()->limit(10)->get();

edit 3: Finally! Since Laravel 5.2.33 (changelog, PR #13642) you can use the native method inRandomOrder():

User::where('active', 1)->inRandomOrder()->limit(10)->get();

DB::table('users')->where('active', 1)->inRandomOrder()->limit(10)->get();

You can use:

ModelName::inRandomOrder()->first();

In Laravel 4 and 5 the order_by is replaced by orderBy

So, it should be:

User::orderBy(DB::raw('RAND()'))->get();

Laravel - Eloquent or Fluent random row

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