Any database diagramming tools out there ?
Mick
a table and all its related objects such as triggers, views,
procedures, etc.
We already have TOAD which shoes these relationships in a tabular form
but we are after a utility which would have the ability to show these
relationship in something similar to an E-R diagram so that it could
be printed off and given to project teams.
We are interested in any recommendations anyone in the Oracle
community would have.
Ed Prochak
Off hand:
ERWIN
Visio
I've used Visio more just because it is less costly. When I have used
it I like ERWIN better.
John Hurley
snip
Newer versions of Toad have had a fair amount of work going into ER
diagramming stuff but I haven't used any of it.
There are a bunch of tools around from way on back including ERWin ...
ER/Studio by embarcadero ( sp? ) ... even Visio I guess ... IBM has
tools ...
I would recommend figuring out how much money ( if any ) you have to
spend, how many copies of a tool you need, and do some testing of the
various contenders.
Probably best done with a real project to see the learning curve and
pain for the people involved.
Tim X
The success you will get with automatic tools will depend on how well
your database is designed and to some extent, how much you are willing
to pay. If you don't have some fairly consistent naming conventions and
incorporate lots of referencial constraints etc, many of the tools
struggle to make sense of the data and their relationships.
If your database design is reasonably sane, uses consistent column
names, good constraint definitions etc, then some of the open source
tools are pretty good. For example sqlfairy can do a pretty good job.
I also like tools that can generate something like a graphviz 'dot' file
as you can then edit that file to improve how the diagrams are rendered.
On the whole, most of these tools, even the commercial ones, only give
average results and the results degrade quickly as the complexity of the
schema increases. One problem is how to represent the diagrams in a
useful manner i.e. in a size that will fit on a screen or can be
printed. Often, you will get this huge diagram that results in you
spending hours scrolling left/right and up/down and never really getting
a good overview. Being able to edit the diagrams to produce more
meaningful smaller diagrams is often useful or just do the diagrams and
forget about automated generation.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
John Hurley
snip
> If your database design is reasonably sane, uses consistent column
> names, good constraint definitions etc, then some of the open source
> tools are pretty good. For example sqlfairy can do a pretty good job.
> I also like tools that can generate something like a graphviz 'dot' file
> as you can then edit that file to improve how the diagrams are rendered.
>
> On the whole, most of these tools, even the commercial ones, only give
> average results and the results degrade quickly as the complexity of the
> schema increases.
Bingo!
Mladen Gogala
That was my problem too. Disgusted by the lack of diagramming tools, I
decided to create my own. Here you can find a script which does simple ER
diagrams from the DB schema:
http://mgogala.byethost5.com/er_diagram.zip
It's a Perl script, which you can use as is. I use it when my boss asks
me to present him with the ER diagram of a schema. So far, he has been
satisfied by the output. No guarantees of suitability for any particular
purpose. The script is extremely simple and uses the GraphViz software,
available here: http://www.graphviz.org
You are also welcome to change it, if needed. The script could use
improvements. It should show table columns and label the arrows with the
foreign key constraints but I don't have the need for that right now.
Galen Boyer
This works very nicely.
http://schemaspy.sourceforge.net/
Uses graphviz
--
Galen Boyer
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Rob Burton
Power Architect.
It's free, open source, multi-platform(Java) and an excellent
diagramming tool. It even has a reasonable go at untangling the
tramlines of complicated schemas. I also like the linkable HTML output
that it gives in addition to the pdf/png ERD diagram. After years of
looking for a reasonable free ERD tool, eventually an excellent one
came along instead.
Shakespeare
Oracle Designer.
Shakespeare