We are using an oracle database in a project. Most of the tables represents classes or objects in the application. The application currently doesn't have a substantial amount of documentation. I am using StarUML to make up some class diagrams and such for other developers on the project to increase their understanding of the overall project. Using the database tables as a starting guide, and then making modifications to the diagrams as needed would be the absolute easiest and quickest way to get these set up. Is there any free applications that could assist me in pulling the schema out of the Oracle database and create class diagrams from them? Currently, there are 98 "objects" or classes closely modeled in the database and to create these all in a modeling application from scratch would be very time consuming.
You don't say what your target language is.
You can use Hibernate to generate schemas from an object model and mapping.
Middlegen is a tool that can create Java classes from schemas. Maybe those will help.
A 1:1 object-to-table mapping isn't always the best way to do things. It's hardly object-oriented. I'd view it as a starting point only.
I looked (briefly) through the StarUML documentation and don't see any way to import a database definition, so I'm not sure how you do this, sorry.
If you can find a way to get the data into StarURL, you could use Oracle's free SQL Developer tool to get the table definitions out as DDL or XML.
I know that Microsoft's Visio tool (Pro & Enterprise editions) can read selected tables from your Oracle database and generate models from that, but it ain't cheap. I really like Allround Automation's PL/SQL Developer as a reasonably-priced IDE targeted at programmers (vs DBAs) and I know that will generate diagrams locally. But I'm not sure it can save the metadata in a form you could use in StarUML.
Good luck,
-- Stew
It's a shame you didn't bother to respond to replies to your own question. Or am I misunderstanding the standard practice here that people just give points and move on?