Rand order inst work ?

To get the mySQL random function, you need to include the parenthesis: ‘RAND()’ otherwise you are telling SQL to order the results by the column named ‘rand’.

I have heard ORDERBY RAND() is very inefficient and you’re better off getting all possible results and randomly picking 3 posts by index number, though by limiting the query to 3 posts perhaps that is not so bad. It’d be interesting to time each approach.

I’m using the class WP_Query, and his doc for do it !
How do you say that I can use random function ?

Oops! You are right, I misunderstood how orderby works in the WP_Query context, my apologies. I cannot explain why the results repeat, your usage appears correct.

Since it’s inefficient, and does not work anyway, you could query for all posts in the categories you want, then instead of a while loop, do something like

global $post;
for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {
  $post = $relac[rand(0,count($relac)-1)];
  // do the usual title-permalink-content-etcetera stuff
}

There is a chance of duplicate posts this way, you could add code to push used post ids into an array and retry random posts if the current id is in the array already.

Hi, I have a similar problem.

I’m making a page, and I need to order some posts belonging to two specific categories, for this, I looked around, and I have to use the category__and. So much perfect.

The problem is that if I use the post category__and not sorted from newest to oldest, it is sorted by date of creation, the first post created the first and last end.

code used:

CATEGORY__IN = WORK:

if( trim( $pagination ) == 'true' ) {
	$paged = mysite_get_page_query();
	$blog_query->query(array(
		'post__in' => $post_in,
		'category__in' => $category_in,
		'tag__in' => $tag_in,
		'post_type' => 'post',
		'posts_per_page' => $showposts,
		'paged' => $paged,
		'offset' => $offset,
		'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
'orderby' => 'date',
'order' => 'DESC',
	));

} else {

	$blog_query->query(array(
		'post__in' => $post_in,
		'category__in' => $category_in,
		'tag__in' => $tag_in,
		'post_type' => 'post',
		'showposts' => $showposts,
		'nopaging' => 0,
		'offset' => $offset,
		'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
'orderby' => 'date',
'order' => 'DESC',
	));
}

WITH CATEGORY__AND = NOT WORK

if( trim( $pagination ) == 'true' ) {
	$paged = mysite_get_page_query();
	$blog_query->query(array(
		'post__in' => $post_in,
		'category__and' => $category_in,
		'tag__in' => $tag_in,
		'post_type' => 'post',
		'posts_per_page' => $showposts,
		'paged' => $paged,
		'offset' => $offset,
		'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
'orderby' => 'date',
'order' => 'DESC',
	));

} else {

	$blog_query->query(array(
		'post__in' => $post_in,
		'category__and' => $category_in,
		'tag__in' => $tag_in,
		'post_type' => 'post',
		'showposts' => $showposts,
		'nopaging' => 0,
		'offset' => $offset,
		'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
'orderby' => 'date',
'order' => 'DESC',
	));
}

If I use category__in, all right, if I use category__and, not working ??

Can you help me?? Thanks

You are saying the order parameter acts as if it were ‘ASC’ only when you use the ‘category__and’ argument, though you clearly are requesting the order to be ‘DESC’?

This is quite strange. The category__and code does nothing with order parameters at all in source code. Perhaps a plugin or your theme is filtering queries for another purpose and your query is getting accidentally caught in that filter? Try deactivating plugins and even switching themes, just to see if this odd behavior goes away.

You can also examine the query var ‘order’ to ensure it is parsed correctly. Or try hooking (with a high numbered priority, execute last parameter) the ‘posts_request’ filter to see that the actual mySQL query is as you expect. If all this checks out, I’d have to say it’s some SQL quirk rather than WP.

If you are desperate to get something working, change the order parameter to ASC for compatibility, then use array_reverse() to get the correct order.

BTW, in the future, we prefer you start your own topic when you have a question, even if similar to someone else’s. It avoids confusion and your question is more likely to be seen by more people, increasing your chances of getting a good answer. Good luck tracking down the cause of this mystery.

Ok, sorry,

I changed this in the wp-includes/query.php line 2283 (WordPress V3.5) and now it’s work correctly… it’s correct?

Change this

if ( !empty( $this->tax_query->queries ) || !empty( $this->meta_query->queries ) ) {
$groupby = "{$wpdb->posts}.ID";
}

for this:

if ( !empty( $this->tax_query->queries ) || !empty( $this->meta_query->queries ) ) {
//$groupby = "{$wpdb->posts}.ID";
}

Thanks