Random record from MongoDB

Question

I am looking to get a random record from a huge (100 million record) mongodb.

What is the fastest and most efficient way to do so? The data is already t

Answer 1

You can pick a random timestamp and search for the first object that was created afterwards. It will only scan a single document, though it doesn't necessarily give you a uniform distribution.

var randRec = function() {
    // replace with your collection
    var coll = db.collection
    // get unixtime of first and last record
    var min = coll.find().sort({_id: 1}).limit(1)[0]._id.getTimestamp() - 0;
    var max = coll.find().sort({_id: -1}).limit(1)[0]._id.getTimestamp() - 0;

    // allow to pass additional query params
    return function(query) {
        if (typeof query === 'undefined') query = {}
        var randTime = Math.round(Math.random() * (max - min)) + min;
        var hexSeconds = Math.floor(randTime / 1000).toString(16);
        var id = ObjectId(hexSeconds + "0000000000000000");
        query._id = {$gte: id}
        return coll.find(query).limit(1)
    };
}();