Generating random strings with T-SQL

Question

If you wanted to generate a pseudorandom alphanumeric string using T-SQL, how would you do it? How would you exclude characters like dollar signs, dashes, and slashes from

Answer 1

When generating random data, specially for test, it is very useful to make the data random, but reproducible. The secret is to use explicit seeds for the random function, so that when the test is run again with the same seed, it produces again exactly the same strings. Here is a simplified example of a function that generates object names in a reproducible manner:

alter procedure usp_generateIdentifier
    @minLen int = 1
    , @maxLen int = 256
    , @seed int output
    , @string varchar(8000) output
as
begin
    set nocount on;
    declare @length int;
    declare @alpha varchar(8000)
        , @digit varchar(8000)
        , @specials varchar(8000)
        , @first varchar(8000)
    declare @step bigint = rand(@seed) * 2147483647;

    select @alpha = 'qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm'
        , @digit = '1234567890'
        , @specials = '_@# '
    select @first = @alpha + '_@';

    set  @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);

    select @length = @minLen + rand(@seed) * (@maxLen-@minLen)
        , @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);

    declare @dice int;
    select @dice = rand(@seed) * len(@first),
        @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);
    select @string = substring(@first, @dice, 1);

    while 0 < @length 
    begin
        select @dice = rand(@seed) * 100
            , @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);
        if (@dice < 10) -- 10% special chars
        begin
            select @dice = rand(@seed) * len(@specials)+1
                , @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);
            select @string = @string + substring(@specials, @dice, 1);
        end
        else if (@dice < 10+10) -- 10% digits
        begin
            select @dice = rand(@seed) * len(@digit)+1
                , @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);
            select @string = @string + substring(@digit, @dice, 1);
        end
        else -- rest 80% alpha
        begin
            declare @preseed int = @seed;
            select @dice = rand(@seed) * len(@alpha)+1
                , @seed = (rand((@seed+@step)%2147483647)*2147483647);

            select @string = @string + substring(@alpha, @dice, 1);
        end

        select @length = @length - 1;   
    end
end
go

When running the tests the caller generates a random seed it associates with the test run (saves it in the results table), then passed along the seed, similar to this:

declare @seed int;
declare @string varchar(256);

select @seed = 1234; -- saved start seed

exec usp_generateIdentifier 
    @seed = @seed output
    , @string = @string output;
print @string;  
exec usp_generateIdentifier 
    @seed = @seed output
    , @string = @string output;
print @string;  
exec usp_generateIdentifier 
    @seed = @seed output
    , @string = @string output;
print @string;  

Update 2016-02-17: See the comments bellow, the original procedure had an issue in the way it advanced the random seed. I updated the code, and also fixed the mentioned off-by-one issue.

Answer 2

Based on various helpful responses in this article I landed with a combination of a couple options I liked.

DECLARE @UserId BIGINT = 12345 -- a uniqueId in my system
SELECT LOWER(REPLACE(NEWID(),'-','')) + CONVERT(VARCHAR, @UserId)

Answer 3

I realize that this is an old question with many fine answers. However when I found this I also found a more recent article on TechNet by Saeid Hasani

T-SQL: How to Generate Random Passwords

While the solution focuses on passwords it applies to the general case. Saeid works through various considerations to arrive at a solution. It is very instructive.

A script containing all the code blocks form the article is separately available via the TechNet Gallery, but I would definitely start at the article.

Answer 4

Using a guid

SELECT @randomString = CONVERT(varchar(255), NEWID())

very short ...

Answer 5

select left(NEWID(),5)

This will return the 5 left most characters of the guid string

Example run
------------
11C89
9DB02

Answer 6

There are a lot of good answers but so far none of them allow a customizable character pool and work as a default value for a column. I wanted to be able to do something like this:

alter table MY_TABLE add MY_COLUMN char(20) not null
  default dbo.GenerateToken(crypt_gen_random(20))

So I came up with this. Beware of the hard-coded number 32 if you modify it.

-- Converts a varbinary of length N into a varchar of length N.
-- Recommend passing in the result of CRYPT_GEN_RANDOM(N).
create function GenerateToken(@randomBytes varbinary(max))
returns varchar(max) as begin

-- Limit to 32 chars to get an even distribution (because 32 divides 256) with easy math.
declare @allowedChars char(32);
set @allowedChars = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz012345';

declare @oneByte tinyint;
declare @oneChar char(1);
declare @index int;
declare @token varchar(max);

set @index = 0;
set @token = '';

while @index < datalength(@randomBytes)
begin
    -- Get next byte, use it to index into @allowedChars, and append to @token.
    -- Note: substring is 1-based.
    set @index = @index + 1;
    select @oneByte = convert(tinyint, substring(@randomBytes, @index, 1));
    select @oneChar = substring(@allowedChars, 1 + (@oneByte % 32), 1); -- 32 is the number of @allowedChars
    select @token = @token + @oneChar;
end

return @token;

end