ljensen.com  DataBoy!
DataBoy!
 Better fake data with less work
A fast, easy-to-use tool that
generates realistic, artificial
tables of textual data.


screen shot


How it works:
DataBoy is a typical document-based application. Each document specifies an output file to be created, and a list of fields that will be written to it.

Each field is associated with a text input file. For each field in the output file, a random line is chosen from the corresponding input file. (The sampling is currently uniform, using a random number generator of unknown quality.)

Quick start: Drag your input files to the big list box. Databoy will add a field for each file you drag. Then set your record count and click Write File -- it's that easy!

Tip: To select a row in the list box, click in the field number column -- the others are editable, and won't select the row.

Tip: If DataBoy crashes on Mac OS 9 and earlier, try increasing its RAM allocation. (Unfortunately, the tool I use to develop DataBoy doesn't allow me to implement a more graceful way around this.)

All input text files are held in RAM, so there's a practical limit on the number of fields. But only one copy of each file is held, even if it is used for multiple fields. The number of output records is irrelevant to RAM usage, as far as I can tell.

      Goodies menu: DataBoy can also, given a text file, convert the first field of each record to proper case, and dump the result to an output file.

Tech menu: Ignore this; it's just for testing.


Future enhancements, maybe:
easier specification of common elements, like people names, place names, phone numbers, cities, area codes...
numbers within a specified range
non-uniform sampling
controlled error introduction
detailed variations (e.g., pick a sub-field from the input line)


It's up to you -- Try it out, and tell me what it needs next!

Download Size (approx) Version Format
DataBoy! for Mac OS 1 MB 1.0d003 StuffIt
DataBoy! for Windows 1 MB 1.0d003 Zip

(Along with the application, I've included a few sample files for you to play with -- enjoy!)

©2002 Lars Jensen http://ljensen.com/databoy