Categories:

Table Functions

# GENERATOR¶

Creates rows of data based either on a specified number of rows, a specified generation period (in seconds), or both. This system-defined table function enables synthetic row generation.

Note that it is possible to generate virtual tables with 0 columns but possibly many rows. Such virtual tables are useful for queries whose SELECT clause consists entirely of data-generating functions.

## Syntax¶

GENERATOR( ROWCOUNT => <count> [ , TIMELIMIT => <sec> ] )

GENERATOR( [ TIMELIMIT => <sec> ] )


## Usage Notes¶

• count and sec must be non-negative integer constants.

• If only the ROWCOUNT argument is specified, the resulting table will contain count rows.

• If only the TIMELIMIT argument is specified, the query runs for sec seconds, generating as many rows as possible within the time frame. The exact row count depends on the system speed and is not entirely deterministic.

• If both the ROWCOUNT and TIMELIMIT arguments are specified, then:

• If the ROWCOUNT is reached before the TIMELIMIT, the resulting table will contain count rows.

• If the TIMELIMIT is reached before the ROWCOUNT, the table will contain the number of rows generated within the time frame. The exact row count depends on the system speed and is not entirely deterministic.

• If ROWCOUNT or TIMELIMIT is null, it will be ignored. So generator(ROWCOUNT => null) generates 0 rows.

• If both parameters (ROWCOUNT and TIMELIMIT) are omitted, the GENERATOR function returns 0 rows.

• The content of the rows is determined by the functions in the projection clause, not by the GENERATOR function itself. For more details, see the Examples section below. See also the description(s) of the specific functions (e.g. SEQ()), that you plan to use in the projection clause; not all valid functions produce sequences without gaps.

## Examples¶

Note

These examples generate sequences that can have gaps. For examples that generate sequences without gaps, see the Snowflake Community article describing how to generate gap-free sequences of numbers and dates .

This example uses the GENERATOR function to generate 10 rows. The content of the rows is determined by the functions in the projection clause:

• The SEQ4() column generates a sequence of 4-byte integers, starting with 0.

• The UNIFORM(…) column generates values in the range between the first parameter (1) and the second parameter (10), based on either a function or a constant passed as the third parameter.

This example includes an optional “seed” for the RANDOM() function so that the output is consistent:

SELECT seq4(), uniform(1, 10, RANDOM(12))
FROM TABLE(GENERATOR(ROWCOUNT => 10)) v
ORDER BY 1;
+--------+----------------------------+
| SEQ4() | UNIFORM(1, 10, RANDOM(12)) |
|--------+----------------------------|
|      0 |                          7 |
|      1 |                          2 |
|      2 |                          5 |
|      3 |                          9 |
|      4 |                          6 |
|      5 |                          9 |
|      6 |                          9 |
|      7 |                          5 |
|      8 |                          3 |
|      9 |                          8 |
+--------+----------------------------+


This example is similar to the preceding example, except that it passes a constant rather than a function as the third parameter to the UNIFORM function. The result is that the output for the UNIFORM column is the same for every row.

SELECT seq4(), uniform(1, 10, 42)
FROM TABLE(GENERATOR(ROWCOUNT => 10)) v
ORDER BY 1;
+--------+--------------------+
| SEQ4() | UNIFORM(1, 10, 42) |
|--------+--------------------|
|      0 |                 10 |
|      1 |                 10 |
|      2 |                 10 |
|      3 |                 10 |
|      4 |                 10 |
|      5 |                 10 |
|      6 |                 10 |
|      7 |                 10 |
|      8 |                 10 |
|      9 |                 10 |
+--------+--------------------+


If you omit both the ROWCOUNT and TIMELIMIT parameters, the output is 0 rows:

SELECT seq4(), uniform(1, 10, RANDOM(12))
FROM TABLE(GENERATOR()) v
ORDER BY 1;
+--------+----------------------------+
| SEQ4() | UNIFORM(1, 10, RANDOM(12)) |
|--------+----------------------------|
+--------+----------------------------+


The following example uses the TIMELIMIT parameter without the ROWCOUNT parameter.

SELECT COUNT(seq4()) FROM TABLE(GENERATOR(TIMELIMIT => 10)) v;

+---------------+
| COUNT(SEQ4()) |
|---------------|
|    3615440896 |
+---------------+