Query for counting

Question

can i achieve effect of counting of 1 to 50 (say) by a single query?
eg. i wan a query for which output is:-
1
2
3
4
50
plz. note that no other table is available for joining purposes.

Answer 1

An effective way of doing the same is using a query like:
select rownum
from (
select 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
from dual
group by cube (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
The advantage of it is not needing a table with x rows to get number you want; also, this query as it is produces 2 ^ 10, i.e. 2 to 10th power, that gives us 1024 (number of rows, so our "maximum" value). If you need higher numbers than that, just ad to the select and group by cube more numbers, like follows:
select rownum
from (
select 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
from dual
group by cube (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
This would give us a maximum value of 2 to 11th power, or 2048.
I got this code on asktom.oracle.com, a very valuable resource!
Regards,
Bruno