maandag 11 januari 2010

How to generate the English Alphabet in SQL

Picked this sweet piece of code from one the questions in SQL Server Central.

WITH Alpha as

(
   SELECT  Distinct Top 26 EnglishAlpha = CHAR(ABS(CHECKSUM(NEWID()))%26+65)
   From Master.sys.SysColumns t1, Master.sys.SysColumns t2
)
SELECT EnlishAlpha
FROM Alpha
ORDER BY EnglishAlpha