Testing user data (fake data)

Question

Where can I get or how to create a large formatted collection of fake user data (names, email address, locations, etc.) that can be used to test the application?

It can be obviously fake, it will be limited to the development server. But I’m sure that everything will be better than I could think of.

Answer 1

There are several tools built for this. I used to use http://www.generatedata.com/ to generate data for MySql databases. RedGate has a good tool for populating your SQL Server database with test data called SQL Data Generator . The RedGate tool costs about $ 300, but there is a free trial.

UPDATE: Faker.js is now available. This is a project built on node.js and it looks pretty comprehensive.

OTHER UPDATE: Mockaroo is great!

If you need an HTTP API of fake user data, see Random User Generator

Answer 2

It is an open source tool for generating various types of test data. http://www.generatedata.com

Answer 3

http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ is a good resource for creating test data with realistic looking users complete with SSN, email address ... They have a bulk upload option as well.

Answer 4

Check out this list of Funny Names, some of them are classic

http://www.ethanwiner.com/funnames.html

Answer 5

Another tool for creating open source test generators is my own http://code.google.com/p/csvtest .

Answer 6

For those who are looking for an updated solution to this problem ... I wrote a test data generator project for Data Synchronization Studio. It can generate a large dataset in the range of 1 to 100 milliseconds of series of realistic test data (there are many OFs there: D) Anyway, there is a blog here. http://www.simego.com/Blog/2012/02/Test-Data-Generator-Download-for-Data-Sync