SQL Populate table with random data

Question

I have a table with two fields:

1. id(UUID) that is primary Key and
2. description (var255)

I want to insert random data with SQ

Answer 1

Here it is a more elegant way using the latest features. I will use the Unix dictionary (/usr/share/dict/words) and copy it into my PostgreSQL data:

cp /usr/share/dict/words data/pg95/words.list

Then, you can easily create a ton of no sense description BUT searchable using dictionary words with the following steps:

1) Create table and function. getNArrayS gets all the elements in an array and teh number of times it needs to concatenate.

CREATE TABLE randomTable(id serial PRIMARY KEY, description text);

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION getNArrayS(el text[], count int) RETURNS text AS $$
  SELECT string_agg(el[random()*(array_length(el,1)-1)+1], ' ') FROM generate_series(1,count) g(i)
$$
VOLATILE
LANGUAGE SQL;

Once you have all in place, run the insert using CTE:

WITH t(ray) AS(
  SELECT (string_to_array(pg_read_file('words.list')::text,E'\n')) 
) 
INSERT INTO randomTable(description)
SELECT getNArrayS(T.ray, 3) FROM T, generate_series(1,10000);

And now, select as usual:

postgres=# select * from randomtable limit 3;
 id |                 description                 
----+---------------------------------------------
  1 | ultracentenarian splenodiagnosis manurially
  2 | insequent monopolarity funipendulous
  3 | ruminate geodic unconcludable
(3 rows)