Question

What’s the easiest way to select one of five fixed strings returned in an SQL Server query, randomly?

I.e. the equivalent of:

function randomColumn() {
   var values = ['apple', 'banana', 'orange', 'cherry', 'lemon'];
   var idx = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5);
   return values[idx];
}

I need to change my existing SQL script to have a certain column return one of these values, without the need to change my client code.

Do I need to create a temp table?

I’m using SQL Server 2008 R2.

Answer 1

You don’t need a temporary table for a few strings, you can create the result on the fly:

select str
from (
  select 0 as id, 'apple' as str
  union all
  select 1, 'banana'
  union all
  select 2, 'orange'
  union all
  select 3, 'cherry'
  union all
  select 4, 'lemon'
) x
where id = floor(rand() * 5)