What is the best way to create and populate a numbers table?

Question

I\'ve seen many different ways to create and populate a numbers table. However, what is the best way to create and populate one? With \"best\" being defined from most to l

Answer 1

Here is a short and fast in-memory solution that I came up with utilizing the Table Valued Constructors introduced in SQL Server 2008:

It will return 1,000,000 rows, however you can either add/remove CROSS JOINs, or use TOP clause to modify this.

;WITH v AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0)) v(z))

SELECT N FROM (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY v1.z)-1 N FROM v v1 
    CROSS JOIN v v2 CROSS JOIN v v3 CROSS JOIN v v4 CROSS JOIN v v5 CROSS JOIN v v6) Nums

Note that this could be quickly calculated on the fly, or (even better) stored in a permanent table (just add an INTO clause after the SELECT N segment) with a primary key on the N field for improved efficiency.