How do I return random numbers as a column in SQL Server 2005?

Question

I\'m running a SQL query on SQL Server 2005, and in addition to 2 columns being queried from the database, I\'d also like to return 1 column of random numbers along with the

Answer 1

I use c# for dealing with random numbers. It's much cleaner. I have a function I use to return a list of random number and a unique key, then I just join the uniqueKey on the row number. Because I use c#, I can easily specify a range within which the random numbers must fall.

Here are the steps to making the function: http://www.sqlwithcindy.com/2013/04/elegant-random-number-list-in-sql-server.html

Here is what my query ends up looking like:

SELECT 
   rowNumber, 
   name, 
   randomNumber
FROM dbo.tvfRandomNumberList(1,10,100) 
INNER JOIN (select ROW_NUMBER() over (order by int_id) as 'rowNumber', name from client        
            )as clients
ON clients.rowNumber = uniqueKey