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pvccaz
Yak Posting Veteran

USA
87 Posts
Posted - 08/20/2013 :  20:34:33  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hi,

I need to generate random strings each of length 7 characters and update it in a table that contains employee data.

For example. There is table called as Employee. It has Id, FirstName, LastName & Email as the columns. I need to mask the real names. So i have to generate random characters between a-z unique for individual records and update it in the table.

Input table

ID FirstName LastName Email
1 Glen Jackson test1@email.com
2 Christopher McClain test2@email.com
3 Carol Kholer test4@email.com
4 James Desoto test5@email.com

Output table should be:

ID FirstName LastName Email
1 Khjkltg Erstlkj test1@email.com
2 Asdlkfu Alsdkjf test2@email.com
3 Alsdkfl Aldkjfl test4@email.com
4 Basdfwe Asldkfj test5@email.com

I went through some websites for generating random characters. These provide a 7 or 8 character random letters.
http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=71874

But i do need to update 2 columns of an entire table with random characters.
Is there a good method to perform this. ?

Thanks in advance for your input.

James K
Flowing Fount of Yak Knowledge

3786 Posts
Posted - 08/20/2013 :  20:54:01  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Use a random number generator - here is one way. Perhaps there are ways to shorten this, but it should work:
UPDATE YourTable SET
	FirstName = 
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25) +
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25),
	LastName = 
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)+
	CHAR(65+ABS(CHECKSUM(NewId())) % 25)
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Lamprey
Flowing Fount of Yak Knowledge

4614 Posts
Posted - 08/21/2013 :  10:53:28  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Dunno if this helps, but I tend to keep it simple and just use part of a GUID:
SELECT LEFT(REPLACE(CAST(NEWID() AS VARCHAR(36)), '-', ''), 7)


If you want to get fancy you can mae a table of names (first and last) and then cross join them to get a set of random names.
http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/order.php
http://listofrandomnames.com/
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/
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pvccaz
Yak Posting Veteran

USA
87 Posts
Posted - 08/21/2013 :  13:03:20  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Thank you James and Lamprey. The samples that both of you provided works great !.
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madhivanan
Premature Yak Congratulator

India
22802 Posts
Posted - 08/26/2013 :  06:45:19  Show Profile  Send madhivanan a Yahoo! Message  Reply with Quote
This can also be of some help http://beyondrelational.com/modules/2/blogs/70/posts/10831/populating-sample-data.aspx

Madhivanan

Failing to plan is Planning to fail
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