Order by random()

[mitjans]

Description of issue

Why is it not possible to retreive data randomly using PosgtREST? What are the limitations?

/documents?select=*&order=random()&limit=1'

{
  "code": "PGRST100",
  "details": "unexpected '(' expecting letter, digit, \"-\", \"->>\", \"->\", delimiter (.), \",\" or end of input",
  "hint": null,
  "message": "\"failed to parse order (random())\" (line 1, column 7)"
}

[steve-chavez]

Previously discussed on PostgREST/postgrest-docs#671.

[TomasHubelbauer]

@steve-chavez I landed here from the original issue. That repository is now archived. Perhaps this one should be re-opened? Unless it is clear that ordering by random won't be supported in a special way and users should provide their own views/RPCs. However I think random is special enough to have pure PostgREST support without having to do anything on the DB level. WDYT?

[wolfgangwalther]

The docs repo is archived, but the issues remaing tracked in #3245. This means that the goal is still to just document this better, but there is not "special handling for random" planned.