A class diagram is to a program as a ________ is to a database?

Question

What is the analogue of a class diagram in the world of relational/SQL databases?

And what is a good way to generate this equivalent in Eclipse? Free is better, but good and commercial is fine as well.

Answer 1

An "entity diagram" or "entity relationship diagram"?

And how about Eclipse ERD?

Answer 2

A schema diagram. Here's an example.

See this related question for example of tools you can use to build these things:

• Recommendation for a good entity relationship diagram building tool for occasional usage?

Answer 3

Entity Relationship Diagram (or model). I don't use Eclipse much anymore, but you can make nice diagrams (for free) in NetBeans.

Answer 4

I know there are different views on this topic, but I prefer to use UML class diagrams for modeling relational databases and for example Scott W. Ambler uses UML for data models in his books - see this page. If you are going to use Hibernate/EclipseLink(former Oracle TopLink)/JPA, then HiberObjects is an excellent Eclipse plugin. I love the way you can create test data using it. The plugin is steadily improving and my experience when reporting bugs is that they are quickly resolved. I also have had good use of the scripting capabilities, generating DAO class tailored to my projects. If you pay, there's an extension to import databases too.