Select Random Numbers from a list - sql

Question

This is my query.
SELECT TOP 2 NUM
FROM QT_PIVOT
WHERE NUM BETWEEN 1 AND 45
ORDER BY NEWID()
I'm selecting 2 random numbers from a list but I don't want that these numbers to be continuous
Sometimes the result is
NUM
----
2
3
And I don't want this
Thanks , and sorry for my English u.u

Answer 1

Basically the same as the 2nd approach Gordon uses except it lacks the use of the lag function and therefor will work on SQL-2008.
WITH Data AS(
SELECT *, RowNum = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY NEWID())
FROM sys.objects AS O
),
r AS(
SELECT TOP 1 *, SkipRow = 0
FROM Data
WHERE Data.RowNum = 1
UNION ALL
SELECT d.*, SkipRow = CASE WHEN d.object_id BETWEEN r.object_id -2 AND r.object_id + 2 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
FROM r
JOIN Data AS D
ON r.RowNum + 1 = D.RowNum
)
SELECT TOP 2 * FROM R
WHERE R.SkipRow = 0

Answer 2

One approach is to select the first number, and then select an appropriate second number:
WITH r AS (
SELECT TOP 1 num
FROM QT_PIVOT
WHERE NUM BETWEEN 1 AND 45
ORDER BY NEWId()
)
select num
from r
union all
select top 1 q.num
from qt_pivot q join
r
on q.num not in (r.num, r.num - 1, r.num + 1)
where q.num between 1 and 45
order by newid();
Another approach (if you had SQL Server 2012+) would use lag() to remove any possibilities that do not meet the conditions:
WITH r AS (
SELECT num, row_number() over (order by newid()) as seqnum
FROM QT_PIVOT
WHERE NUM BETWEEN 1 AND 45
)
SELECT r.num
FROM (SELECT r.*, LAG(num) OVER (ORDER BY seqnum) as prevnum
FROM r
) r
WHERE prevnum is null or
prevnum not in (num - 1, num + 1);
EDIT:
The first approach doesn't work, because SQL Server always re-evaluates CTEs, and there is not even a hint to fix this problem. Here is an alternative approach, that will ensure that values are not consecutive:
WITH r as (
SELECT (1 + checksum(newid()) * 45) as r1,
(2 + checksum(newid()) * 43) as r2
)
SELECT q.num
FROM QT_PIVOT q
WHERE q.num = r.r1 or
q.num = 1 + (r.r1 + r.r2) % 45;
This calculates a two random numbers. The first is a random position. The second is an allowable offset (hence the "2" and "43") to guarantee that the numbers are not adjacent.