Generate an integer sequence in MySQL

Question

I need to do a join with a table/result-set/whatever that has the integers n to m inclusive. Is there a trivial way to get that without just building the table?

(BTW what would that type of construct be called, a "Meta query"?)

m-n is bounded to something reasonable ( < 1000's)

Answer 1

I found this solution on the web

SET @row := 0; SELECT @row := @row + 1 as row, t.* FROM some_table t, (SELECT @row := 0) r 

Single query, fast, and does exactly what I wanted: now I can "number" the "selections" found from a complex query with unique numbers starting at 1 and incrementing once for each row in the result.

I think this will also work for the issue listed above: adjust the initial starting value for @row and add a limit clause to set the maximum.

BTW: I think that the "r" is not really needed.

ddsp

Answer 2

The following will return 1..10000 and is not so slow

SELECT @row := @row + 1 AS row FROM  (select 0 union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) t, (select 0 union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) t2,  (select 0 union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) t3,  (select 0 union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) t4,  (SELECT @row:=0) numbers;