Sometimes you need garbage

Not because DBAs are the IT equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, but maybe you want to post a question on a forum, and you don’t want to use your own data. At least, you probably shouldn’t just post your own data without masking it. But masking data is annoying, and by the time you get everything in order, someone’s breathing down your neck for an answer.

Your other option is to write T-SQL to generate random data of your choosing, but that can be daunting too. Generating random numbers and dates between ranges, creating relationships, etc. isn’t a ton of fun. Adding more tables makes the whole process exponentially caustic.

Enter the website

A website I really like to help generate data is over here. It’s really easy to set up data the way you want, and you get a lot of neat customization options for a wide variety of data types.

You can have it generate the data to just about any format you can think of: CSV, Excel, SQL, JSON, HTML, XML, and you have all sorts of options for each type. It’s really awesome.

Next time you need to generate some test data, consider trying this site out. It’s been really helpful for me on a bunch of occasions. If you like it, donate. There’s no such thing as a free table.

Thanks for reading!