Gaby,

Ok... I realize that you said "quick and dirty", but I keep looking at this article and wondering... why? :blink: Why would someone need to generate a giga-byte sized test table with virtually no useful test data in it? The only thing I can think of (maybe) is to use it for testing backups.

And, that's a lot of RBAR in that code... it can be done without any RBAR using the following...

--===== If the test table already exists, drop it so we can rebuild it

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.BigTable','U') IS NOT NULL

DROP TABLE dbo.BigTable

GO

--===== Define a handful of dynamic SQL variables

DECLARE @SQL1 VARCHAR(8000),

@SQL2 VARCHAR(8000),

@SQL3 VARCHAR(8000)

--===== Define the "fixed" portion of the SELECT list

SELECT @SQL1 = '

SELECT TOP 265000

IDENTITY(INT,1,1) AS RowID,

GETDATE() AS EntryDate,

' + CHAR(9)

--===== Define the 220 GUID columns we want to build.

-- This uses the variable overlay technique of concatenation.

SELECT @SQL2 = COALESCE(@SQL2+','+CHAR(10)+ CHAR(9),'') + 'NEWID() AS Val' + CAST(Number AS VARCHAR(10))

FROM Master.dbo.spt_Values --Could use a Tally or Numbers table here

WHERE Type = 'P'

AND Number BETWEEN 1 AND 220

--===== Define the "Into" and the cross join that will spawn the rows.

-- This uses the same cross-join technique usefull in building Tally and Numbers tables

SELECT @SQL3 = '

INTO dbo.BigTable

FROM Master.dbo.SysColumns sc1 WITH (NOLOCK)

CROSS JOIN Master.dbo.SysColumns sc2 WITH (NOLOCK)'

--===== Show what the final code looks like, just for fun...

-- PRINT @SQL1+@SQL2+@SQL3

--===== ... and then run it. (Takes about a minute on my ancient but useful box)

EXEC (@SQL1+@SQL2+@SQL3)