I’m currently in a phase where I abuse information_schema tables for optimizations very savage. I had the idea for the first time, when I wanted to generate 10 random numbers from 1 to auto_increment of a table:

SELECT 1 + FLOOR(RAND() * auto_increment) start
FROM information_schema.global_status
JOIN (
SELECT auto_increment
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema=DATABASE()
AND table_name=’t1′
)X
LIMIT 10;

Combined with the idea of your cross-join solution, one could use something like this instead of having a temporary integer table:

SELECT @x:= @x + 1
FROM (
SELECT @x:= 0
) TMP
JOIN (
SELECT *
FROM information_schema.global_status
LIMIT 10
) X
CROSS JOIN (
SELECT *
FROM information_schema.global_status
LIMIT 10
) Y
CROSS JOIN (
SELECT *
FROM information_schema.global_status
LIMIT 10
) Z;

I used global_status, because this table has about 300 elements, which allows to change the LIMIT in a very constant and also large range.

Robert

Xaprb, am not seeing how this plus the code in your page on char-dump work together since your integer table ends up being 0-9. There’s no doubt a better way, but I created a larger integer table via a temporary 0-9 table:

create table Uintegers(i int unsigned not null);
create table integers(i int unsigned not null);
insert into Uintegers(i) values (0), (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9);

(like yours so far)
Then, use this table of 9 as workspace to create the needed collection of integers (0-999):

insert into integers (
select (hundreds.i * 100) + (tens.i * 10) + units.i as iii
from Uintegers as units
cross join Uintegers as tens
cross join Uintegers as hundreds );

Then, to clean up:

drop table Uintegers;

DECLARE @StartTime DATETIME –Timer to measure total
SET @StartTime = GETDATE() –Start the timer

SELECT TOP 100000
IDENTITY(INT,1,1) AS N
INTO dbo.Tally
FROM Master.dbo.SysColumns sc1,
Master.dbo.SysColumns sc2

Select * From Tally

Drop table Tally
SELECT STR(DATEDIFF(ms,@StartTime,GETDATE())) ‘ Milliseconds duration’

[Takes quick look around] hey, fabulous site, and some great contents.

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