How to generate a range of numbers between two num

Question

I have two numbers as input from the user, like for example 1000 and 1050.

How do I generate the numbers between these two numbers, using a sql query, in seperate rows? I want this:

 1000
 1001
 1002
 1003
 .
 .
 1050

Answer 1

This completed for me in 36 seconds on our DEV server. Like Brian's answer, focusing on filtering to the range is important from within the query; a BETWEEN still tries to generate all the initial records prior to the lower bound even though it doesn't need them.

declare @s bigint = 10000000
    ,   @e bigint = 20000000

;WITH 
Z AS (SELECT 0 z FROM (VALUES (0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9),(10),(11),(12),(13),(14),(15)) T(n)),
Y AS (SELECT 0 z FROM Z a, Z b, Z c, Z d, Z e, Z f, Z g, Z h, Z i, Z j, Z k, Z l, Z m, Z n, Z o, Z p),
N AS (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY 0 ORDER BY z) n FROM Y)

SELECT TOP (1+@e-@s) @s + n - 1 FROM N

Note that ROW_NUMBER is a bigint, so we can't go over 2^^64 (==16^^16) generated records with any method that uses it. This query therefore respects the same upper limit on generated values.

Answer 2

recursive CTE in exponential size (even for default of 100 recursion, this can build up to 2^100 numbers):

DECLARE @startnum INT=1000
DECLARE @endnum INT=1050
DECLARE @size INT=@endnum-@startnum+1
;
WITH numrange (num) AS (
    SELECT 1 AS num
    UNION ALL
    SELECT num*2 FROM numrange WHERE num*2<=@size
    UNION ALL
    SELECT num*2+1 FROM numrange WHERE num*2+1<=@size
)
SELECT num+@startnum-1 FROM numrange order by num

Answer 3

SELECT DISTINCT n = number 
FROM master..[spt_values] 
WHERE number BETWEEN @start AND @end

Demo

Note that this table has a maximum of 2048 because then the numbers have gaps.

Here's a slightly better approach using a system view(since from SQL-Server 2005):

;WITH Nums AS
(
  SELECT n = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY [object_id]) 
  FROM sys.all_objects 

)
SELECT n FROM Nums 
WHERE n BETWEEN @start AND @end
ORDER BY n;

Demo

or use a custom a number-table. Credits to Aaron Bertrand, i suggest to read the whole article: Generate a set or sequence without loops

Answer 4

The best way is using recursive ctes.

declare @initial as int = 1000;
declare @final as int =1050;

with cte_n as (
    select @initial as contador
    union all
    select contador+1 from cte_n 
    where contador <@final
) select * from cte_n option (maxrecursion 0)

saludos.

Answer 5

Select non-persisted values with the VALUES keyword. Then use JOINs to generate lots and lots of combinations (can be extended to create hundreds of thousands of rows and beyond).

SELECT ones.n + 10*tens.n + 100*hundreds.n + 1000*thousands.n
FROM (VALUES(0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9)) ones(n),
     (VALUES(0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9)) tens(n),
     (VALUES(0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9)) hundreds(n),
     (VALUES(0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9)) thousands(n)
WHERE ones.n + 10*tens.n + 100*hundreds.n + 1000*thousands.n BETWEEN @userinput1 AND @userinput2
ORDER BY 1

Demo

A shorter alternative, that is not as easy to understand:

WITH x AS (SELECT n FROM (VALUES (0),(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9)) v(n))
SELECT ones.n + 10*tens.n + 100*hundreds.n + 1000*thousands.n
FROM x ones,     x tens,      x hundreds,       x thousands
ORDER BY 1

Demo

Answer 6

an alternative solution is recursive CTE:

DECLARE @startnum INT=1000
DECLARE @endnum INT=1050
;
WITH gen AS (
    SELECT @startnum AS num
    UNION ALL
    SELECT num+1 FROM gen WHERE num+1<=@endnum
)
SELECT * FROM gen
option (maxrecursion 10000)