Table of Contents

About

This how-to will show you how to fill a table with auto-generated data and the Tabul fill action.

Steps

Prerequisites

You should have Tabulify installed on your computer. Learning Tabulify - Step 1 - Installation

Create the target table

For the purpose of this how-to, we will work with the date_dim TPC-DS table.

tabul data create date_dim@tpcds @sqlite
Results of the create operation
input            target
--------------   ---------------
date_dim@tpcds   date_dim@sqlite

Fill the date_dim table with 10 rows

With the tabul data fill operation, insert 10 rows automatically generated into the table date_dim

tabul data fill --max-record-count 10 date_dim@sqlite
Transfer results
input             target            latency   record_count   error_code   error_message
---------------   ---------------   -------   ------------   ----------   -------------
date_dim@memgen   date_dim@sqlite   0.54s               10

Check the result

With the data print command, we can see the content of the date_dim table in the sqlite connection

tabul data print date_dim@sqlite
date_dim@sqlite
d_date_sk   d_date_id   d_date       d_month_seq   d_week_seq   d_quarter_seq   d_year   d_dow   d_moy   d_dom   d_qoy   d_fy_year   d_fy_quarter_seq   d_fy_week_seq   d_day_name   d_quarter_name   d_holiday   d_weekend   d_following_holiday   d_first_dom   d_last_dom   d_same_day_ly   d_same_day_lq   d_current_day   d_current_week   d_current_month   d_current_quarter   d_current_year
---------   ---------   ----------   -----------   ----------   -------------   ------   -----   -----   -----   -----   ---------   ----------------   -------------   ----------   --------------   ---------   ---------   -------------------   -----------   ----------   -------------   -------------   -------------   --------------   ---------------   -----------------   --------------
        1   a           2025-10-12             9            7               2        7       6       8       5       5           6                  8               4   m            r                q           d           g                               7            8               4               2   g               k                x                 f                   v
        2   b           2025-10-13             8            6               4        2       3       4       8       6           0                  2               1   s            p                p           c           z                              10            9               5               1   b               s                k                 s                   r
        3   c           2025-10-11             1            6               8        3       1       3       9       1           9                  7               8   w            i                q           c           e                              10            1               3               3   z               j                h                 n                   h
        4   d           2025-10-11             7            0               1        9       5      10       6       3           3                  0               1   r            r                a           b           n                               9            2               3               4   p               a                z                 k                   z
        5   e           2025-10-15             4            0              10        1       5       4       0       2           7                  5               4   k            r                y           m           v                              10            3               5               0   o               p                o                 f                   v
        6   f           2025-10-15             7           10               2        0       9       9       3       6           6                  2               2   m            u                u           b           l                               9            9               1               0   a               e                o                 t                   b
        7   g           2025-10-10             6            6              10        8       1       8       9       8           0                  0              10   q            i                o           y           m                              10            9              10               8   l               h                x                 x                   b
        8   h           2025-10-18             6            5              10        7      10       6       3       2           5                  7               5   o            x                d           z           s                               3            8               3               7   s               q                r                 w                   d
        9   i           2025-10-14             9            9               2        7       0       1       7       8           4                  4               3   m            d                s           b           g                               1            9              10               5   u               u                f                 g                   p
       10   j           2025-10-20             3            7               3       10       0       2       9       3           3                  1               5   x            w                h           q           j                              10            2               1               6   t               d                y                 y                   m

Fill the date_dim table with 10.000 rows

tabul data fill --max-record-count 10000 date_dim@sqlite
Transfer results
input             target            latency   record_count   error_code   error_message
---------------   ---------------   -------   ------------   ----------   -------------
date_dim@memgen   date_dim@sqlite   0.588s           10000

Check the result

And we got 10.000 rows

tabul data list -a count date_dim@sqlite
path       media_type   count
--------   ----------   -----
date_dim   table        10000

Next

The generated data follows a default definition but you can define the generated data that you want with the help of a data definition file.

Learn how to fill a table with defined generated data