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

For anyone looking for an Azure solution

SET NOCOUNT ON    
CREATE TABLE Numbers (n bigint PRIMARY KEY)    
GO    
DECLARE @numbers table(number int);  
WITH numbers(number) as  (   
SELECT 1 AS number   
UNION all   
SELECT number+1 FROM numbers WHERE number<10000  
)  
INSERT INTO @numbers(number)  
SELECT number FROM numbers OPTION(maxrecursion 10000)
INSERT INTO Numbers(n)  SELECT number FROM @numbers

Sourced from the sql azure team blog http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2010/09/16/create-a-numbers-table-in-sql-azure/