Fill lists with sample data

Question

Is there a simple way to fill lists with sample data? I have about 10 lists with all kinds of fields, string, int, date, etc.

I would like to automate the generation of data for them

Answer 1

Look at one of these two open source projects to see if they can work for you? (They're old and marked 2007 but if they use web services they should work for 2010). Worst case, you could start from that code.

SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool or SharePoint Test Data Tool

Answer 2

First quesiton is where do you want to run the population from ? The server itself or remotely. Another question would be what kind of data are you wanting to create, might get a bit more complicated if you want to include binary data like attachments or library documents/forms. I'd probably write a powershell script todo this, if it's directly on the server I'd make use of the server side object model, otherwise I'd use the web services.