[mssql] Selecting Random Selection Of Rows From A Database Table

I found a nice tip for selecting random rows from within a SQL Server 2000 database. Well actually, pseudorandom. Since my undergraduate thesis was on the topic of pseudorandom number generation, I might as well be precise. For some reason, my non-geek friends find it awfully funny when I mention pseudorandom numbers.

I digress. In order to select 10 records from some table at random, try this:

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM someTable ORDER By NEWID()

Now for my homework, I should find out just how random this is. There's a whole slew of statistical tests I can run to gauge the randomness of pseudorandom number generator such as the Chi-square Test, Serial Correlation Coefficient, and 2-D Random Walk Test to name a few.

IMPORTANT: Please note that this will NOT work in SQL 7 on NT4 because the NEWID() function there generates sequential results