From: Martijn Tonies
Date: January 29 2010 3:32pm
Subject: Re: Good source for sample data?
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/220478
Message-Id: <116901caa0f8$4d42afb0$6101a8c0@martijnws>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	format=flowed;
	charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

>> I need a few million sample contact records - name, company, address, 
>> email, web, phone, fax. ZIP codes and area codes and street addresses 
>> should be correct and properly formatted, but preferably not real people 
>> or companies or email addresses. But they'd work if you did address 
>> validation or mapping. Anyone have a suggestion?
>>
>> - Brian
>
> It should be easy to code a routine to generate random data.  Maybe 20 -
> 30 lines of code.  Obviously you may have a name like Dgidfgq Xcvbop and
> company Wsdkn, but it shouldn't matter if testing is your purpose.

Actually, this DOES matter...

Test data can be required for all sorts of purposes, for example:

- running a demo of the application
- testing real life-like data entry
- trial versions that include data
- course-ware for your application when it gets implemented by a company
- decent value distribution in indices

This is why our tool, Advanced Data Generator, allows you to
generate life-like company names, has libraries for first/last names
and much more.



With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

Download Database Workbench for Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase SQL
Anywhere, MySQL, InterBase, NexusDB and Firebird!

Database questions? Check the forum:
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com