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

This will produce a string 96 characters in length, from the Base64 range (uppers, lowers, numbers, + and /). Adding 3 "NEWID()" will increase the length by 32, with no Base64 padding (=).

    SELECT 
        CAST(
            CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX),
                CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
            ,2) 
        AS XML).value('xs:base64Binary(xs:hexBinary(.))', 'VARCHAR(MAX)') AS StringValue

If you are applying this to a set, make sure to introduce something from that set so that the NEWID() is recomputed, otherwise you'll get the same value each time:

  SELECT 
    U.UserName
    , LEFT(PseudoRandom.StringValue, LEN(U.Pwd)) AS FauxPwd
  FROM Users U
    CROSS APPLY (
        SELECT 
            CAST(
                CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX),
                    CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), NEWID())
                    +CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), U.UserID)  -- Causes a recomute of all NEWID() calls
                ,2) 
            AS XML).value('xs:base64Binary(xs:hexBinary(.))', 'VARCHAR(MAX)') AS StringValue
    ) PseudoRandom