Selecting N rows in SQL Server

Question

Following query will return 1-10 in 10 rows.

DECLARE @Range AS INT = 10

;WITH CTE AS(
    SELECT TOP (@Range) Duration = ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY OBJECT_ID)
    FROM sys.all_columns
    ORDER BY [Object_id]
)
SELECT Duration from CTE

But when I set @Range as 10000 it returns 7374 rows. Why this query can't return more than 7374 rows.

UPDATE

I just found another way to achieve my requirement as following

DECLARE @start INT = 1;
DECLARE @end INT = 10;

WITH numbers AS (
    SELECT @start AS number
    UNION ALL
    SELECT number + 1 
    FROM  numbers
    WHERE number < @end
)
SELECT *
FROM numbers
OPTION (MAXRECURSION 0);

Without last line of code it breaks with error Maximum recursion 100 has been exhausted before statement completion and I found this line is specifying 0 for infinite recursion. But this query seems a little slower to me. Is there any faster way???

Answer 1

As commented earlier, it's because you reached the number of rows of sys.columns. Here is another way to generate list of numbers or what others call Numbers Table or Tally Table.

This uses cascaded CTEs and is said to be the fastest way to create a Tally Table:

DECLARE @Range AS INT = 7374

;WITH E1(N) AS( -- 10 ^ 1 = 10 rows
    SELECT 1 FROM(VALUES (1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1))t(N)
),
E2(N) AS(SELECT 1 FROM E1 a CROSS JOIN E1 b), -- 10 ^ 2 = 100 rows
E4(N) AS(SELECT 1 FROM E2 a CROSS JOIN E2 b), -- 10 ^ 4 = 10,000 rows
E8(N) AS(SELECT 1 FROM E4 a CROSS JOIN E4 b), -- 10 ^ 8 = 10,000,000 rows
CteTally(N) AS(
    SELECT TOP(@Range) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY(SELECT NULL))
    FROM E8
)
SELECT * FROM CteTally

You could easily add another CTE if you need more than 10,000 rows.

For more information about Tally Table, read this excellent article by Jeff Moden.

For performance comparisons among ways to generate Tally Tables, read this.

---

Explanation taken from Jeff's article:

The CTE called E1 (as in 10E1 for scientific notation) is nothing more than ten SELECT 1's returned as a single result set.

E2 does a CROSS JOIN of E1 with itself. That returns a single result set of 10*10 or up to 100 rows. I say "up to" because if the TOP function is 100 or less, the CTE's are "smart" enough to know that it doesn't actually need to go any further and E4 and E8 won't even come into play. If the TOP has a value of less than 100, not all 100 rows that E2 is capable of making will be made. It'll always make just enough according to the TOP function.

You can follow from there. E4 is a CROSS JOIN of E2 and will make up to 100*100 or 10,000 rows and E8 is a CROSS JOIN of E4 which will make more rows than most people will ever need. If you do need more, then just add an E16 as a CROSS JOIN of E8 and change the final FROM clause to FROM E16.

What's really amazing about this bad-boy is that is produces ZERO READS. Absolutely none, nada, nil.