Ever need to generate a random number in T-SQL? I have, on a couple of different occasions. I'm pretty sure that there's several different ways of doing this in T-SQL, but here's what I use:
DECLARE @maxRandomValue TINYINT = 100
, @minRandomValue TINYINT = 0;
SELECT CAST(((@maxRandomValue + 1) - @minRandomValue)
* RAND() + @minRandomValue AS TINYINT) AS 'randomNumber';
This approach uses the RAND() function to generate a random seed; it also ensures that the value returned is between the specified min and max value. I've been using this method in one stored procedure that's called a couple of hundred times per second, and it seems to perform pretty well.
What method do YOU use to generate a random number? Is it faster than this method?
