FakeNameGenerator

Generates fake profile names that can be used when needing to simulate realistic usage of an app. I needed this to simulate somewhat realistic chat activity.

The tool contains two apps:

• a command-line tool
• a Flask-based webapp

The tool generates the fake profile names by selecting random names from a pool of available first, middle and last names.

See the text around data files below.

Command-line usage

Generate a fake name by running:

$ ./cli.py

The output will be something like this:

Full name: John Smith
Username: jsmith53

Web App

As a prerequisite, you will need to build and activate a virtual environment. This is done using the Makefile:

$ make venv

When the venv is built, activate it by running:

$ . venv/bin/activate

Now start the web application by running:

(venv) ~/FakeNameGenerator $ python app.py
 * Serving Flask app 'app'
 * Debug mode: off
WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production deployment. Use a production WSGI server instead.
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000
Press CTRL+C to quit

Now point a browser to one of the following addresses:

• http://127.0.0.1:5000 : this will give you a single user.
• http://127.0.0.1:5000/many : this will give you many profiles

Data files

For this to work, you need three data files:

first_names.txt
last_names.txt
middle_names.txt

The names are self explanatory. The files should respectively contain a list of first names, last names and middle names. One name per line.

You will need to get the data files somewhere else or make your own.