In 8.1.6 Oracle added a new feature which I don't believe is very well documented, it is great.
DBMS_RANDOM.STRING([OPT], [LEN]);
This will create a random string with a length of up to 60 characters. Great for force populating tables.
The opt is for things like L, U, M (Lower, Upper, Mixed case), there are a few different options.
One thing I did to force populate a table is: DBMS_RANDOM.STRING('U', DBMS_RANDOM.VALUE(5, 10));
Which creates random string with random length between 5 and 10 characters. Run 10,000,000 times, I got a table with 30 columns and 10,000,000 random rows in no time.
"Do not criticize someone until you walked a mile in their shoes, that way when you criticize them, you are a mile a way and have their shoes."
Christopher R. Spence
Oracle DBA
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