How to request a random row in SQL?

Question

How can I request a random row (or as close to truly random as is possible) in pure SQL?

Answer 1

With SQL Server 2012+ you can use the OFFSET FETCH query to do this for a single random row

select  * from MyTable ORDER BY id OFFSET n ROW FETCH NEXT 1 ROWS ONLY

where id is an identity column, and n is the row you want - calculated as a random number between 0 and count()-1 of the table (offset 0 is the first row after all)

This works with holes in the table data, as long as you have an index to work with for the ORDER BY clause. Its also very good for the randomness - as you work that out yourself to pass in but the niggles in other methods are not present. In addition the performance is pretty good, on a smaller dataset it holds up well, though I've not tried serious performance tests against several million rows.