How to efficiently select random rows from a large table ?

Question

Hello,
The following code will select 5 rows out of a random set of rows from the emp (employee) table
select *
  from (
       select ename, job
         from emp
       order by dbms_random.value()
where rownum <= 5my concern is that the inner select will cause a table scan in order to assign a random value to each row. This code when used against a large table can be a performance problem.
Is there an efficient way of selecting random rows from a table without having to do a table scan ? (I am new to Oracle, therefore it is possible that I am missing a very simple way to perform this task.)
thank you for your help,
John.
Edited by: 440bx on Jul 10, 2010 6:18 PM

Answer 1

Have a look at the SAMPLE clause of the select statement. The number in parenthesis is a percentage of the table.
SQL> create table t as select * from dba_objects;
Table created.
SQL> explain plan for select * from t sample (1);
Explained.
SQL> @xp
PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
Plan hash value: 2767392432
| Id  | Operation           | Name | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT    |      |   725 | 70325 |   289   (1)| 00:00:04 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS SAMPLE| T    |   725 | 70325 |   289   (1)| 00:00:04 |
8 rows selected.