Create test data in SQL Server

Question

Does anyone have or know of a SQL script that will generate test data for a given table?

Ideally it will look at the schema of the table and create row(s) with test data

Answer 1

Well I thought I would pull my finger out and write myself a light weight data generator:

declare @select varchar(max), @insert varchar(max), @column varchar(100),
    @type varchar(100), @identity bit, @db nvarchar(100)

set @db = N'Orders'
set @select = 'select '
set @insert = 'insert into ' + @db + ' ('


declare crD cursor fast_forward for
select column_name, data_type, 
COLUMNPROPERTY(
    OBJECT_ID(
       TABLE_SCHEMA + '.' + TABLE_NAME), 
    COLUMN_NAME, 'IsIdentity') AS COLUMN_ID
from Northwind.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
where table_name = @db


open crD
fetch crD into @column, @type, @identity

while @@fetch_status = 0
begin
if @identity = 0 or @identity is null
begin
    set @insert = @insert + @column + ', ' 
    set @select = @select  + 
        case @type
            when 'int' then '1'
            when 'varchar' then '''test'''
            when 'nvarchar' then '''test'''
            when 'smalldatetime' then 'getdate()'
            when 'bit' then '0'
            else 'NULL'
        end + ', ' 
end
fetch crD into @column, @type, @identity
end 

set @select = left(@select, len(@select) - 1)
set @insert = left(@insert, len(@insert) - 1) + ')'
exec(@insert + @select)

close crD
deallocate crD

Given any table, the script will create one record with some arbitrary values for the types; int, varchar, nvarchar, smalldatetime and bit. The case statement could be replaced with a function. It won't travel down dependencies but it will skip any seeded columns.

My motivation for creating this is to test my NHibernate mapping files against a table with some 50 columns so I was after a quick a simple script which can be re-used.