6/6/2014 How to easily populate a table with random data

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How to easily populate a table with random
data
Chris Eaton Feb 22, 2006 | Comments (13)
Have you ever wanted to quickly populate a test table with data? Well here is a
single SQL statement that you can use as a basis to add in dummy data into any
table with as many rows as you need.
First let's pick a sample table to populate as follows:
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE (
EMP_ID integer
DATE_OF_BIRTH date
SALARY integer
EMP_NAME char(10)
)
Above we have 3 of the more common data types (integer, character, date) but with
the method below you will see how you can modify the SQL for other data types
(timestamp, varchar, smallint, decimal, etc)
The first thing we need to do is start the insert statement with
INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE (EMP_ID, DATE_OF_BIRTH, SALARY, EMP_NAME)
Next we want to use a common table expression (CTE) to generate employee
numbers starting at 1 and going up to the number of rows I want to put in the table.
So for example, if I want 1000 rows in the table I would use the following CTE:
WITH EMP_IDS(EMP_ID) AS
( VALUES(1) UNION ALL
SELECT EMP_ID+1 FROM EMP_IDS WHERE EMP_ID < 1000 )
The above starts with a CTE with a single value of 1. Then union all's that with a new
row which is the previous row value plus 1. The union all's continue until the EMP_ID
reaches the max value you want which in this case is 1000.
The next thing to do is to select from this table of 1000 rows and add in random data
for the other columns. First select the EMP_ID value
SELECT EMP_ID,
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Now generate random birth dates. Let's assume that employees are at least 18
years old but not more than 65 years old (no offense to anyone outside this range
but I'm using this to show you how you can create random dates within a given
range). The following starts with the current date and then subtracts from that a
number ranging from 18 years to 65 years (18 + 47 = 65).
CURRENT DATE - ((18 * 365) + RAND()*(47*365)) DAYS,
Now we want a random salary. Let's assume that everyone makes more than
$50,000 but less than $140,000.
INTEGER(50000 + RAND()*90000),
Now for the most difficult part. We want to generate a random character string of up
to 10 characters. For this we will first generate a random number that is up to 10
digits long, convert that number into a character string (the same numbers but now
as a CHAR datatype) and then we will use the TRANSLATE function to randomly
convert those numbers into characters.
TRANSLATE ( CHAR(BIGINT(RAND() * 10000000000 )), 'abcdefghij', '1234567890' )
This will give you a random string made up of letters from a through j. If you want to
get fancy you could put in fewer than 10 characters in the to string so that it also
puts spaces in the text string to make it appear like it is multiple words. Or you could
include upper case letters as well. Finally you have to put in the FROM clause in
which you select from EMP_IDS.
Here is the full statement.
INSERT INTO EMP (EMP_ID, DATE_OF_BIRTH, SALARY, EMP_NAME)
WITH EMP_IDS(EMP_ID) AS
( VALUES(1) UNION ALL
SELECT EMP_ID+1 FROM EMP_IDS WHERE EMP_ID < 1000 )
SELECT EMP_ID,
CURRENT DATE - ((18 * 365) + RAND()*(47*365)) DAYS,
INTEGER(50000 + RAND()*90000),
TRANSLATE ( CHAR(BIGINT(RAND() * 10000000000 )), 'abcdefgHij', '1234567890' )
FROM EMP_IDS
One SQL statement to populate 1000 rows of random data.
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Unknown User May 31, 2008
Great! However it seems that there is a minor inaccuracy in the code as when I'm
6/6/2014 How to easily populate a table with random data
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trying to increase the max value to 500000, I get SQL0433N error - too long value
"ajjjjjjjjjj "...
Unknown User May 31, 2008
"EMP_NAME char(11)" solved my problem
Unknown User Jun 26, 2008
Hi Chris,
I have tried to run this on SQL server 2005 but it seems the "WITH" is not
recognized by SQL management Studio 2005.
The function "TRANSLATE" is also not working in the same. Can you provide me
the corresponding SQL function for this.
Chris Eaton Jun 27, 2008
Hi Arindom, this statement should do the trick
SELECT MORE_POWERFUL_RDBMS
FROM IBM
WHERE SQL = 'More Robust'
AND SCALABILITY= 'Higher'
AND PERFORMANCE = 'Faster'
:-)
Sorry but I don't know SQL Server syntax well enough to suggest an alternative.
Unknown User Sep 4, 2008
This sample was just what I was looking for. Thanks for posting this!
CURRENT DATE - ((18 * 365) + RAND()*(47*365)) DAYS,
I remorked this into a TIMESTAMP I needed:
CURRENT TIMESTAMP - ((18 * 365) + RAND()*(47*365)) DAYS
Apr 30, 2009
i tried following your code and ended up with errors in sql server 2005
that's the code for my employeedetail table
INSERT INTO Employeedetail (empid, empname, empadd, emptel, empposition,
empsalary) WITH empid(empid) AS
( VALUES(1) UNION ALL
SELECT empid+1 FROM empid WHERE empid
Chris Eaton Apr 30, 2009
Hi Haider, unfortunately SQL Server 2005 is not as advanced in the SQL space as
DB2 is. Sorry I can't help. But if you want to get DB2 in there to make it work you
can certainly get a free copy of Express-C.
dzodzo action Aug 2, 2009
Hi Chris,
I think You have wrong syntax...
each row should be separate by coma...
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE (EMP_ID integer,DATE_OF_BIRTH date,SALARY integer,EMP_NAME char(10));
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Prasanna SK Jan 11, 2010
Is there a way to generate random data and insert them into a table of a DB in DB2
Chris Eaton Jan 11, 2010
Yes, read this blog posting to see how.
USER_1877751 Jan 28, 2010
hey guys this query is not working in oracle, when i tried its prompting ORA-32033 :
unsupported column aliasing
Chris Eaton Jan 28, 2010
What does work in Oracle :-)
Oracle does not support the WITH clause until 11gR2. So you will have to use a
PL/SQL procedure in some kind of loop to add random data in 11gR1 and prior
releases.
Matt Rand Feb 15, 2010
Hi Chris,
I ran across your article thinking it was perfect, but like several others I discovered it
does not work on Oracle. However I came up with an alternate solution which seems
to work perfectly on Oracle and thought I would share for those who might need it.
Begin
For IDS in 1..100000
Loop
Insert into VALS(ID,VALS)
values(IDS, dbms_random.string('U',10));
If mod(IDS, 100000) = 0 then
Commit;
End if;
End loop;
End;
Hopefully this helps those Oracle folks out there. It's not as elegent as Chris's here,
but it gets the job done.
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Archive Category: Solve Problems
Keyword Tags: DB2 Common table expression sample data recursive query
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