Custom Fake Data

By default, this extension delivered with a small set of fake data. For each fake function ( fake_email(), fake_first_name()) we provide pnly 1000 unique values and they are only in English.

Here's how you can create your own set of fake data !

Localized fake data

We provide a python script that will generate fake data for you. This script is located in the anon extension directory usually sometehing like

/usr/share/postgresql/13/extension/anon/populate.py

If you want to produce 5000 emails in French & German, you simply call the scripts like this:

$ python3 $(pg_config --sharedir)/extension/anon/populate.py --table email \
                                                             --locales fr,de \
                                                             --lines 5000

This will output the fake data in CSV format.

Use populate.py --help for more details about the script parameters

You can load directly the fake data into the extension like this:

TRUNCATE anon.email;

COPY anon.email
FROM
PROGRAM 'python3 [...]/populate.py --table email --locales fr,de --lines 5000';

SELECT setval('anon.email_oid_seq', max(oid))
FROM anon.email;

CLUSTER anon.email;

Load your own fake data

If you want to use your own dataset, you can import custom CSV files with :

SELECT anon.init('/path/to/custom_csv_files/')

Look at the data folder to find the format of the CSV files.

Using the PostgreSQL Faker extension

If you need more specialized fake data sets, please read the Advanced Faking section.