Javafaker API – Generate Real-Time Fake Data – Faker Class

Introduction

I remember when I used to generate some random data with alphabets and numbers which were meaningless words like “Bjhet”, “Hyiue” etc. Generating some random data helps you to eliminate boilerplate codes or unnecessary headaches of maintaining data.

For example:- If you need to register a user which requires first name, last name, age, address, etc. We used to generate some random data for these fields so that there is no need to pass data explicitly. But these data were meaningless although it serves the purpose.

Will be not it good if we could generate fake data that looks like real data? Something a real name like “Amod” or “John”. Yes, It is possible using Java Faker API.

Javafaker API

Javafaker API is a Java library that provides utilities to generate pretty data for the showcase randomly. You can generate fake real data for name, address, city, state as per locale. If you want to get a random city name of US you can select US locale or if you want an Indian city use IND locale. Default locale it takes as “English”.

Maven Dependency

To use Javafaker library in your Java project we need to use the latest dependency of this library from the Maven central repo. For this post I have used the below version of this dependency:-

    com.github.javafaker
    javafaker
    1.0.2

Faker class

The fake class provides utility methods for generating fake strings, such as names, phone numbers, addresses. generate random strings with given patterns. Let’s see a sample program to generate some data.

Example with the default locale

package FakerClassExamples;

import com.github.javafaker.Faker;

public class FakerWithLocale {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		// Create an object of Faker class with default locale i.e ENG
		Faker faker = new Faker();
		// To generate valid random first name
		System.out.println("First name is: "+faker.name().firstName());
		// To generate valid random last name
		System.out.println("Last name is: "+faker.name().lastName());
		// To generate valid random city name
		System.out.println("City name is: "+faker.address().cityName());
		// To generate valid random state name
		System.out.println("State name is: "+faker.address().state());
		// To generate valid random country name
		System.out.println("Country name is: "+faker.address().country());
		// To generate valid random cell number
		System.out.println("Cell number is: "+faker.phoneNumber().cellPhone());
		// To generate valid random animal name
		System.out.println("Animal name is: "+faker.animal().name());
			
	}

}

Output

First name is: Jay
Last name is: Mraz
City name is: Rashadburgh
State name is: Arkansas
Country name is: Bahrain
Cell number is: 958-668-7313
Animal name is: bee

Second run

First name is: Alyssa
Last name is: Carter
City name is: Jodyfort
State name is: Connecticut
Country name is: Puerto Rico
Cell number is: 1-546-542-1758
Animal name is: turtle 

We can see how well it gives you real-time fake data.

Example with Indian locale

You need to pass a valid locale to the Faker constructor. You can find all supported locale here.

package FakerClassExamples;

import java.util.Locale;

import com.github.javafaker.Faker;

public class FakerWithIndiaLocale {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		// Create an object of Faker class with default locale i.e ENG
		Faker faker = new Faker(new Locale("en-IND"));
		// To generate valid random first name
		System.out.println("First name is: "+faker.name().firstName());
		// To generate valid random last name
		System.out.println("Last name is: "+faker.name().lastName());
		// To generate valid random city name
		System.out.println("City name is: "+faker.address().cityName());
		// To generate valid random state name
		System.out.println("State name is: "+faker.address().state());
		// To generate valid random country name
		System.out.println("Country name is: "+faker.address().country());
		// To generate valid random cell number
		System.out.println("Cell number is: "+faker.phoneNumber().cellPhone());
		// To generate valid random animal name
		System.out.println("Animal name is: "+faker.animal().name());
			
	}

}

Output

First name is: Rageshwari
Last name is: Sethi
City name is: Kolkata
State name is: Dadar and Nagar Haveli
Country name is: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Cell number is: (063) 036-5884
Animal name is: minnow
===================================
First name is: Kin
Last name is: Mishra
City name is: Hyderabad
State name is: Tamil Nadu
Country name is: South Africa
Cell number is: 572.064.1603
Animal name is: walrus

You can see it generates random data belonging to the IND locale. I see a problem here for interdependent data like generating a city name of a state. I mean to get a city name from state Karnataka rather than any city name.

We will see some more concepts about Javafaker in the upcoming post.

You can clone above Git Repo from here.

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