DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports
Events Video Library
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
View Events Video Library
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks

Integrating PostgreSQL Databases with ANF: Join this workshop to learn how to create a PostgreSQL server using Instaclustr’s managed service

Mobile Database Essentials: Assess data needs, storage requirements, and more when leveraging databases for cloud and edge applications.

Monitoring and Observability for LLMs: Datadog and Google Cloud discuss how to achieve optimal AI model performance.

Automated Testing: The latest on architecture, TDD, and the benefits of AI and low-code tools.

Related

  • How To Generate Scripts of Database Objects in SQL Server
  • How to Store Text in PostgreSQL: Tips, Tricks, and Traps
  • MongoDB to Couchbase for Developers, Part 1: Architecture
  • Introduction to Couchbase for Oracle Developers and Experts: Part 2 - Database Objects

Trending

  • How To Handle Technical Debt in Scrum
  • Running Unit Tests in GitHub Actions
  • Continuous Integration vs. Continuous Deployment
  • Information Security: AI Security Within the IoT Industry
  1. DZone
  2. Data Engineering
  3. Databases
  4. Document Your SQL Server Database with Free Tools: SQL Server Compact Toolbox and DB>Doc

Document Your SQL Server Database with Free Tools: SQL Server Compact Toolbox and DB>Doc

Erik Ejlskov Jensen user avatar by
Erik Ejlskov Jensen
·
Dec. 18, 13 · Interview
Like (0)
Save
Tweet
Share
16.09K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

In this blog post I will highlight an overlooked feature in my SQL Server Compact Toolbox (Visual Studio add-in or standalone), the ability to create interactive relationship diagrams of SQL Server databases. And in combination with the free, open source DB>Doc for SQL Server, you have a full suite of documentation tools.

In order to create a diagram showing tables, columns and relationships for your SQL Server database, install the Toolbox.

Right click the root node of the Toolbox window, and select “Create SQL Server Database Graph (DGML)”:

image

Select the database that you want to diagram (the tool needs SELECT permission on the system views in the database)

image

You can also select to diagram only a subset of the tables in the database:

image

You will be prompted for a location to save the DGML file, enter this, and click OK, and Visual Studio will show the generated diagram in the DGML viewer, that comes with Visual Studio 2012 Pro or higher:

image

The viewer is quite advanced, from the Layout menu you can choose between various layouts of the dependency graph, and other advanced features to analyse the graph, for example. From the viewer you can Share as Image or XPS:

image

Click on a table, and select the down arrow button to expand the table into columns, and refer to the Legend also displayed (via the Legend menu item in the viewer):

image

More information on working with the graphs is available on MSDN:

Browse and Rearrange Dependency Graphs

Edit and Customize Dependency Graphs

To create HTML/XML based documentation of your database columns, you can use the open sourceDB>Doc tool. The main idea [of this tool] is to serve as a complementary tool to database diagrams, focusing on columns in tables and their meaning (common database diagrams focus to entity relationships).

I also use this tool for the documentation feature in the Toolbox for SQL Server Compact database files, which produces output similar to this:

image

Happy documenting! And feel free to provide feedback athttps://sqlcetoolbox.codeplex.com/WorkItem/Create

Database sql Document

Published at DZone with permission of Erik Ejlskov Jensen, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Related

  • How To Generate Scripts of Database Objects in SQL Server
  • How to Store Text in PostgreSQL: Tips, Tricks, and Traps
  • MongoDB to Couchbase for Developers, Part 1: Architecture
  • Introduction to Couchbase for Oracle Developers and Experts: Part 2 - Database Objects

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 3343 Perimeter Hill Drive
  • Suite 100
  • Nashville, TN 37211
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: