How do you document your database structure?

Answer 1

Since we use Rational Software Architect, we use its data discovery features to document our databases and then annotate them from there.

Answer 2

SQL Server has extended properties that can take care of this.

This article describes how do set them up in SQL Sever http://www.developer.com/db/article.php/3677766

MSDN Reference

It can be used in conjunction with RedGate SQL Doc to create a nice Data dictionary.

Answer 3

At one point I wrote a basic SQL parser that would parse CREATE TABLE statements and strip out specially formatted comments. These were then post-processed into LaTeX source and rendered to PDF. This was inspired by Javadoc and was used to create the documentation for This product. Subsequently a data dictionary feature was built into the warehouse manager and a modified version of the LaTeX generator was used to render the data dictionary from the warehouse manager.

On another project I used Visio - the version that comes with Visual Studio Enterprise Architect will forward engineer a database. The SQL so generated had the table and column comments rendered in comment strings that were fairly straightforward to parse. The tool I wrote generated MIF files that were be included into a spec document built with FrameMaker.

If you have a repository tool such as Powerdesigner you can maintain data models in it and get repository reports out that include the documentation you have entered. If you need deeper integration of your data dictionary with functional specifications (Quite useful for data warehouse systems where the ETL is complex and involves significant computation of derived values) you can still extract the metadata and write a utility to generate something that will integrate the data dictionary into a specification document. This also allows cross-referencing between data dictionary items and other specification documents and generation of indexes that cover the data dictionary definitions and related documentation such as a specification of how something is calculated with examples.

Answer 4

We've written a word document that lists the tables, the fields and what everything does. This is backed up by a diagram that shows how everything links/relates to each other. It's a pretty simple document really, just a load of tables with Field Name > Data Type > Purpose

Answer 5

I'm using Firebird which has description field for all system objects (tables, columns, views, procedures and parameters, triggers, etc.) It's nice because you can easily share it with others (docs go with database, not separately) and you never lose it.

Most admin. tools for Firebird allow you to edit these descriptions and there are some specialized tools (like IBDesc, for example) that create nice HTML or PDF reports you can print (for some or all tables) easily.

Answer 6

In Oracle you can comment on tables and it stores it in the data dictionary.

However, I store all my table, column, index comments in a very old version of ERWin. It's the master source of truth and generates the DDL to create tables, etc. From there, I can extract it out into a word document or pdf.

Answer 7

It's a really simplistic approach, but I use a pair of wiki pages: one with the mysqldump of the database, and one written in a slightly more English-like format.

For the projects I've worked on, that's been sufficient (through the dozens of tables level). I don't know how well it might scale to larger projects (say in the hundreds of tables), but it's been good so far.

Answer 8

MySQL allows comments on tables and rows. PostgreSQL does as well. From other answers, Oracle and MSSQL have comments too.

For me, a combination of UML diagram for a quick refresher on field names, types, and constraints, and an external document (TeX, but could be any format) with extended description of everything database-related - special values, field comments, access notes, whatever - works best.

Answer 9

I comment my databases as I comment my programs. By writing good (I hope) comments in the source code (the SQL file containing the DDL instructions).

Using SQL COMMENT is another possibility. The good thing with them is that they are always with your objects, are backed up with them, etc. The bad thing is that they are more limited (for instance in length).

Answer 10

I use comments attached to tables and column. SchemaSpy is a great tool for generating html documentation files out of your schema, including comments.