increment empty SQL column from 1 to N (SQL server)

Question

I have created a table called table1 which has a column called column1.

How can I populate column1 with (e.g.) 1000 rows in which each row has a unique number going from 1 to 1000? The first row has number 1, the second 2, the third has 3, etc.

my apologies, I use SQL server. I forgot to precise it, I edit my post and added it to the title! :) — dll, Sep 27 '17 at 14:21
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30741629/how-to-insert-n-rows-of-default-values-into-a-table — jophab, Sep 27 '17 at 14:22
pretty much all DBMS can do this. Exactly how depends on which youre using — Tom O., Sep 27 '17 at 14:23

SQLChao · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-27T14:37:03.470

1

You can do it like this

DECLARE @i INT = 1
WHILE @i <= 1000
BEGIN
  INSERT INTO table1 (column1) VALUES (@i)
  SET @i = @i + 1
END

edited Sep 27 '17 at 14:37

answered Sep 27 '17 at 14:24

SQLChao

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Thanks but, the code does not specify column1, Can you explain why there is do not need to specify that we want to increment column1? What if I have multiple columns? – dll Sep 27 '17 at 14:36
@dll I edited it to specify the column. Sorry I took your question literally as you had a table with a single column in it. – SQLChao Sep 27 '17 at 14:37
No problem, thanks it works ! – dll Sep 27 '17 at 14:48
Why use a loop for this? – S3S Sep 27 '17 at 14:52

increment empty SQL column from 1 to N (SQL server)

1 Answers1