LINQ to SQL: How to get a Random Record from a Table inside the SQL Server Database

I wanted to get a random record from a particular table on the SQL Server database. For my case, I had a table containing quotes, and I wanted to randomly pick on to show on one corner of my web site. I am also using LINQ to SQL for this web site, so the solution here will be using LINQ, although the approach is pretty simple and flexible.

The idea centers on ordering the records by a random parameter an then getting the TOP n number of records. The NEWID() function from SQL Server makes a great candidate for getting a random parameter since this method generates a GUID.

In SQL Server, try out this query.

SELECT * FROM Quote ORDER by NEWID();

SELECT TOP 1 * FROM Quote ORDER by NEWID();