wp_list_bookmarks() – alphabetical random?

Try this:
<?php
$random_links = $wpdb->get_col(“SELECT link_id FROM $wpdb->links ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5”);
$csv_links = implode(“,”, $random_links);
$wlb_param_list=’orderby=name&categorize=0&title_li=&include=’ . $csv_links;
wp_list_bookmarks($wlb_param_list);
?>

Note: of course change the LIMIT to however many links you want.

That’s very helpful, thank you!

However, I can’t figure out how to pull from one specific link category in that case. I tried changing the SQL query to “SELECT link_id FROM $wpdb->links where link_category=something ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5″, which seems intuitive (looking at the SQL structure, but on further inspection all of my links have the link_category=0, even though they belong to separate categories in WordPress.

Going into mySQL and doing “SELECT * FROM wp_links” I’m afraid I don’t see any other easy way to distinguish them.

Am I missing something obvious?
Thanks!

Well your original ‘spec’ didn’t say anything about specific categories ??

Using Otto42’s magic try this (I didn’t do much testing):

<?php
$random_links = $wpdb->get_col("SELECT link_id FROM $wpdb->links
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships ON
($wpdb->links.link_id = $wpdb->term_relationships.object_id)
LEFT JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy ON
($wpdb->term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id = $wpdb->term_taxonomy.term_taxonomy_id)
WHERE $wpdb->term_taxonomy.taxonomy = 'link_category'
AND $wpdb->term_taxonomy.term_id = 13
ORDER BY RAND()
LIMIT 5");
$csv_links = implode(",", $random_links);
$wlb_param_list='orderby=name&categorize=0&title_li=&include=' . $csv_links;
wp_list_bookmarks($wlb_param_list);
?>

That’s pulling links in Category = 13.

This is very true. =D I thought I could work from a general solution to the specific one, but my SQL-fu is weak. I think having both in one place will be good for future reference, though.

That works beautifully!
Thanks again!