Listing Child Pages in Random order

Question

I am currently using a Plug-in that creates a "silo" structure for my website. It creates a sidebar with a list of the Parent page followed by the Child Pages. It only allows me to show the Child pages in the order that they were created. I would like to have the child pages listed in random order, Is this a possibility?

Example:

Pool Removal Contractors
-Alabama
-Arizona
-Arkansas

I found the following code here:

function wpb_list_child_pages() { 

    global $post; 

    if ( is_page() && $post->post_parent )    
        $childpages = wp_list_pages( 'sort_column=menu_order&title_li=&child_of=' .$post->post_parent . '&echo=0' );
    else
        $childpages = wp_list_pages( 'sort_column=menu_order&title_li=&child_of=' . $post->ID . '&echo=0' );

    if ( $childpages ) {    
        $string = '<ul>' . $childpages . '</ul>';
    }

    return $string;
}

add_shortcode('wpb_childpages', 'wpb_list_child_pages');

Answer 1

The sort_column parameter of wp_list_pages() does allow items to be returned in random order using the rand option.

sort_column (string) Comma-separated list of column names to sort the pages by. Accepts 'post_author', 'post_date', 'post_title', 'post_name', 'post_modified', 'post_modified_gmt', 'menu_order', 'post_parent', 'ID', 'rand', or 'comment_count'. Default 'post_title'.

add_shortcode( 'wpb_childpages', 'wpb_list_child_pages' );
function wpb_list_child_pages() { 
    global $post; 

    if ( is_page() && $post->post_parent ) {
        $childpages = wp_list_pages( 'sort_column=rand&title_li=&child_of=' . $post->post_parent . '&echo=0' );
    } else {
        $childpages = wp_list_pages( 'sort_column=rand&title_li=&child_of=' . $post->ID . '&echo=0' );
    }

    if ( $childpages ) {    
        $string = '<ul>' . $childpages . '</ul>';
    }

    return $string;
}