LINQ: Get Random Record

There is no built-in function that returns a random record from the database using LINQ to SQL. One way is to create a user-defined function in a partial class of the data context.

public partial class DataContextNameHere : System.Data.Linq.DataContext
{

       //some code here

        [Function(Name = "NEWID", IsComposable = true)]
        public Guid Random()
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }

}

To use this method in your LINQ Statement, here is an example for a small number of records:

DataContext DbContext = new DataContext();

var result = (from r in DbContext.TableName

                orderby DbContext.Random()

                select r).FirstOrDefault();

 

 

For a large number of records, multiple queries is advisable to use, where it get the number of records and pick one at random.

DataContext DbContext = new DataContext();

var list = from r in DbContext.TableName

             select r;

int count = list.Count(); // get count here
int index = new Random().Next(count);

var result = list.Skip(index).FirstOrDefault(); // pick on here

L.