Title: Question About A Random Post Plugin
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Question About A Random Post Plugin

 *  [crysacraig](https://wordpress.org/support/users/crysacraig/)
 * (@crysacraig)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/)
 * I was wondering if anyone knows of a way I can get a sinle post, of my choice
   from a category I chose on my homepage. I want to include an excerpt of the post
   and a link to the rest of the post… like what is shown on this site [http://www.book-blog.com/](http://www.book-blog.com/)
   above the amazon banner.
 * Can someone give me a line of code I can use to do that or is there a plugin?
 * Thanks very much

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  [wp_guy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp_guy/)
 * (@wp_guy)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/#post-757793)
 * I guess you could do a custom database call, like so:
 *     ```
       <?php
   
       $random_post = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_type='post' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
   
       echo $random_post->post_content;
       echo '<br />';
       echo '<a href="'.$random_post->guid.'">Read More...</a>';
   
       ?>
       ```
   
 * That would echo the whole post content, not just the excerpt… I’m not sure how
   to get the excerpt right now… anyone?
 *  Thread Starter [crysacraig](https://wordpress.org/support/users/crysacraig/)
 * (@crysacraig)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/#post-757812)
 * Thanks wp_guy for responding.
 * o.k. when I add that all that shows up is the read more. Is there some custom/
   additional code I have to add or change??
 * Does anyone else know how to get an excerpt in there as well.
 *  [wp_guy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp_guy/)
 * (@wp_guy)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/#post-757816)
 * Aah! my bad… I hadn’t actually tried the code.
 * Here’s the good one:
 *     ```
       <?php
   
       $random_post = $wpdb->get_row("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_type='post' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
   
       setup_postdata($random_post);
   
       the_content("Read More...");
   
       ?>
       ```
   
 * That one will work fine and show the excerpt (if you use the <!–more–> tag).
 *  [wp_guy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp_guy/)
 * (@wp_guy)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/#post-757817)
 * Just noticed the ‘read more…’ link isn’t right for some reason…
 *  [wp_guy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp_guy/)
 * (@wp_guy)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/#post-757822)
 * Got it!
 *     ```
       <?php
   
       $rand_posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_type='post' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1");
   
       foreach($rand_posts as $post){
   
       	setup_postdata($post);
   
       	the_excerpt("Read More...");
   
       }
   
       ?>
       ```
   
 * **Works 100%** (you can choose to use the_content() instead of the_excerpt() 
   if you’d like).

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Question About A Random Post Plugin’ is closed to new replies.

 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [wp_guy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/wp_guy/)
 * Last activity: [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/question-about-a-random-post-plugin/#post-757822)
 * Status: not resolved

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