Spawner Data Generator Files

Spawner v0.1.7
Seth Grover
2009-10-16

Description
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Spawner is a tool for generating test data suitable for populating databases.

It can currently generate the following types of data:
   - random integer in a specified range
   - random floating point number in a specified range
   - a sequence of integers (with the ability to specify starting location,
     number of times to duplicate an entry before moving on to the next one,
     and the stride or increment value)
   - randomly chosen value from a fixed set (enumerated type)
   - randomly chosen line from a file
   - words (randomly chosen from a bank of 100 or so Latin words), including:
     * fixed number of words (ie., 10 words)
     * random number of words (ie., 4 to 8 words)
   - strings (with the ability to allow/disallow alpha, numeric, spaces, and
     other characters), including:
     * fixed length string (ie., 10 characters)
     * random-length string (ie., 4-10 characters)
     * random string matching a specified mask
   - IPv4-formatted IP addresses
   - MAC addresses
   - full name
   - first name
   - last name
   - street address
   - city
   - state
   - ZIP code (US)
   - Postcode (UK)
   - country
   - phone number
   - email address
   - social security number
   - date, time, or date/time values
     * random in a specified range
     * incrementing within a specified range
     * decrementing within a specified range
     * current time
   - GUID

Spawner will currently generate data in the following formats:
   - delimited text
     * delimiting character(s) can be specified
     * optional quote characters(s) can be specified
   - SQL insert statements
     * INSERT, INSERT IGNORE, or REPLACE statements
     * table name can be specified
     * field names can be either specified or not
     * number of records per insert can be specified
   - direct inserts into a MySQL database
 
Fields can be named and field order can be specified.
 
Compiling
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In order to be 100% cross-platform, Spawner was written with Lazarus v0.9.28
on top of FreePascal v2.4.0. Compilation is as easy as downloading and
installing Lazarus and FreePascal. Lazarus and FreePascal are available
by navigating to http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org, then clicking on
"Download Lazarus".

Once Lazarus and FreePascal are installed and set up, the file program.lpr
can be opened and compiled, which should create Spawner's executable.

Usage
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Fields can be added on the "Fields" tab. Click the button with the circular
green icon just below the "Fields" list to reset the field options and
prepare a "New Field" for creation. Selecting from the Type and Subtype
lists will change what is configurable in the Field Options. Once you have
set the field options as desired, clicking "Save" will add the field to the
field list. If another field exists with the same name, or if you are changing
the settings of an existing field, you will be prompted to overwrite the
existing settings.

Fields can be removed by clicking the red X below the field list. Field
order can be changed by clicking the up and down arrows below the
field list. Selecting a field from the field list will cause the
field type and subtype combos and field options to be populated with the
settings for the selected field. Double-clicking on a field in the field
list will show in the status bar an example of the data which would be
generated from the current saved field settings.

Once your fields have been defined, click the "Output" tab. Specify the
number of records to generate, from 1 to a billion. Specify the output
filename as well. Select the output type. For delimited records,
you may specify the delimiter (from 1 to 5 characters) and the quote
character, if desired. For SQL, you may specify the table name, the
number of records per insert statement, the insert operation (INSERT,
INSERT IGNORE, or REPLACE) and whether or not to include field names
in the insert statements.

Once output settings are configured, click "Spawn" to generate the
data. Data generation can be cancelled by clicking the X button to the
left of the progress bar during generation.

You can save and load schema definitions by through the "File" menu.

The "Log" tab contains a log of actions performed and error messages.

Known Limitations
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  - Data is not correlated across fields. in other words, if you have a city
    field, a state field, a ZIP code field, and a country field, the generator
    is not going to pick city, state, ZIP code, and country values that match.
    You might get something like "New York City, Nebraska, 12345, Egypt".