One Random Post (not random list or link)

Hmm. You can initialize The Loop to display a single post by inserting
query_posts() just before it with an argument of "p=ID" — ID being replaced with the numeric ID of a post. To pass it a random post ID requires a way of retrieving the ID randomly. So try this as your query_posts() code:

<?php
$rand_id = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
query_posts("p=$rand_id");
?>

Thanks, but I have no clue how to implement this. I tried this code, which results in no error, but no post shows either! Do I have it in the wrong place?

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php<br />
$rand_id = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");<br />
query_posts("p=$rand_id");<br />
?>

<!-- ?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ? -->

<div class="post"><br />
<h2 id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"><img src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/images/bug-head.jpg"> <a>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>

<div class="entry">

<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); ?><br />
</div>

<p class="postmetadata">posted <?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> in <?php the_category(', ') ?> <strong>|</strong> <?php edit_post_link('Edit','','<strong>|</strong>'); ?> <?php comments_popup_link('no comments', '1 comment', '% comments'); ?> <strong>|</strong> <a>/wp-print.php?p=<?=the_ID()?>">print version</a>

</div>

<!-- ?php endwhile; ? -->

<div class="navigation">

<?php posts_nav_link('','','&laquo; earlier posts') ?><br />
| <a>">home</a> | <?php posts_nav_link('','newer posts &raquo;','') ?>

</div>

<?php else : ?>

<h2 class="center">Not Found</h2><br />
<p class="center"><?php _e("Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here."); ?><br />
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . "/searchform.php"); ?>

<?php endif; ?>

</div><br />

Might I suggest my random posts plugin? It’s a single template tag that you insert into your templates. You can select how many random posts to display (you want just one); as well as which categories to use (or zero for all categories).

So, you could do this in your index.php:

<?php
$p = random_posts(0, 1);
query_posts("p=$p");
// run through the Loop as normal now

See the query_posts() documentation for additional details.

You’ve got the following two lines commented out:
<!-- ?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ? -->
<!-- ?php endwhile; ? -->

Those are the two lines that actually loop through and display each individual post. They should be:

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

That should get the posts displaying. Skippy’s plugin also works quite well.

My code would also go before The Loop, as I note above, and not *in* it:

<?php
$rand_id = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
query_posts("p=$rand_id");
?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

~Post-related code and template tags go here. ~

<?php endwhile; ?>

Thanks to all. I got it working, Karfkaesqui, based on your last post suggestion. Works really well (now!). ??

I’m trying to do this single, random-post thing too, but I can’t get Skippy’s plugin to work. When I place the few lines of code just above “the loop” I just get an error message.

Do I have to comment out some other lines to make it work? Which ones?

I am using the code quite similar as described by Kafkaesqui above, however, it does show the entire content, without the <!–more–> tag and it neither shows the comment count. Anyway to implement this?

Oh yeah, I’m also trying to exclude a category… however just coding
... WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_category != 1 ...
does not seem to work whatsoever. It actually only shows one post all the time that actually has that category number.

What if I want a link that says “random” on my page and when you click it takes you to a random post or page. The above listed comments seem to deal with displaying in a template. I just want a link that jumps to a random page or post.

@ njg97r: just include the permalink instead of all the post data. Something like this should work for you:

<?php
$rand_id = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
query_posts("p=$rand_id");
?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>">random</a>

<?php endwhile; ?>

Yes, you load alot of the db, but since PHP and MySQL is so fast, that wouldn’t be a problem at all. Everytime the page reloads, you’ll get a new “random” link (basically, the permalink to the individual post).

CounterDax: That code for just a random permalink is exactly what I was looking for. Works perfectly, too. Thanks!

I think my problem is solved… I should’ve called setup_postdata($post); too.

Hi

I have used the hack that Kafkaesqui proposed on this site:
https://www.weddingcompanycornwall.co.uk
It is the thing below the tips section. It is working brilliantly except for one thing. I only want to display part of the post and then link to the rest of the post. For the moment I am including the post title so that is a link, but how do I make those … at the end of the post become a link please?

Thanks

Rich

Well, first of all, the link leads to a completely unrelated website: you trying to sneak in some advertisement?

Can you post the snippet of code here? I recon the ‘…’ in your post means the ‘[…]’ when calling the excerpt… are you calling the excerpt? If this is the case you need to hack WordPress itself.

/wp-includes/functions-formatting.php
Locate:

function wp_trim_excerpt($text) { // Fakes an excerpt if needed
global $post;
if ( '' == $text ) {
$text = $post->post_content;
$text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
$text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);
$text = strip_tags($text);
$excerpt_length = 55;
$words = explode(' ', $text, $excerpt_length + 1);
if (count($words) > $excerpt_length) {
array_pop($words);
array_push($words, '[...]');
$text = implode(' ', $words);
}
}
return $text;
}

Change:

function wp_trim_excerpt($text) { // Fakes an excerpt if needed
global $post;
if ( '' == $text ) {
$text = $post->post_content;
$text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
$text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);
$text = strip_tags($text);
$excerpt_length = 55;
$words = explode(' ', $text, $excerpt_length + 1);
if (count($words) > $excerpt_length) {
array_pop($words);
array_push($words, '<a href="' . get_permalink() . '">...</a>');
$text = implode(' ', $words);
}
} else {
$text = $text . '... <a href="' . get_permalink() . '">more</a>&raquo;';
}
return $text;
}