From 340f6bbdb62bc8a56621a7fc9ec1080f8e2de639 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: jbranchaud <jbranchaud@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 08:26:41 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] Add Generate Series Of Numbers as a postgres til.

---
 README.md                              |  1 +
 postgres/generate-series-of-numbers.md | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 47 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 postgres/generate-series-of-numbers.md

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 88e2400..0a24c39 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -57,6 +57,7 @@ smart people at [Hashrocket](http://hashrocket.com/).
 - [Configure The Timezone](postgres/configure-the-timezone.md)
 - [Count Records By Type](postgres/count-records-by-type.md)
 - [Extracting Nested JSON Data](postgres/extracting-nested-json-data.md)
+- [Generate Series Of Numbers](postgres/generate-series-of-numbers.md)
 - [String Contains Another String](postgres/string-contains-another-string.md)
 - [Timestamp Functions](postgres/timestamp-functions.md)
 - [Toggling The Pager In PSQL](postgres/toggling-the-pager-in-psql.md)
diff --git a/postgres/generate-series-of-numbers.md b/postgres/generate-series-of-numbers.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0bef567
--- /dev/null
+++ b/postgres/generate-series-of-numbers.md
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+# Generate Series Of Numbers
+
+Postgres has a `generate_series` function that can be used to, well,
+generate a series of something. The simplest way to use it is by giving it
+`start` and `stop` arguments
+
+```sql
+> select generate_series(1,5);
+ generate_series 
+-----------------
+               1
+               2
+               3
+               4
+               5
+```
+
+The default step is 1, so if you want to count backwards, you need to
+specify a negative step
+
+
+```sql
+> select generate_series(5,1,-1);
+ generate_series 
+-----------------
+               5
+               4
+               3
+               2
+               1
+```
+
+You can use a larger step value to, for instance, get only multiples of 3
+
+```sql
+> select generate_series(3,17,3);
+ generate_series 
+-----------------
+               3
+               6
+               9
+              12
+              15
+```
+
+Trying this out with timestamps is left as an exercise for the reader.