linq select a random row

Question

I have a table called Quotes in linq-to-sql that contains 2 columns: author and quote. How do you select both columns of a random row?

Answer 1

If you're doing Linq-to-Objects and don't need this to work on SQL, you can use ElementAt() instead of the more verbose Skip(toSkip).Take(1).First() :

var rndGen = new Random(); // do this only once in your app/class/IoC container
int random = rndGen.Next(0, context.Quotes.Count);
context.Quotes.ElementAt(random);