Sunday, February 19, 2012

Documentation of the Tables in SQL Server

Hi all
I have 15 tables in my database and I want to create a pdf file with description about all the columns of these tables(Data Model)
Few questions
How can I get all the column names in the excel or pdf file?
Is there any tool which can give me the output template for these columns and then I just have to fill the description for each column?
ThanksYou can query the Information _Schema tables to get a listing of tables and their columns.|||Did you ask your dba?|||Did you ask your dba?

Better yet ... did you buy your dba lunch?|||My preference would be to create a script that will create the tables (complete with constraints, etc) and then comment that script liberally. You can use Visual Studio, SQL Enterprise Mangler, or SQL-DMO to make the script if you don't already have one.

Once you've done this, check the fully commented script into source code control too!

-PatP|||Thanks guys for the responses
Here I am talking about an already built system and I am trying to document the database|||You can look on Red Gate i think they have a tool for that|||You can look on Red Gate i think they have a tool for that

so do I, and it's better than redgate's. see the link in my sig. :)|||Thanks
I wish there was any free/open source solution!|||Pat's solution (post #5) is free. I have a binder on my desk that's full of well commented "script" files of all my table definitions. Columns, indexes, triggers, etc. Every time I change a table, I regenerate the script and put new comments in. The extra 5 minutes is worth the effort.|||I don't consider a pile of commented source files as documentation. Would the the source code to SQL Server (heavily commented) tell you how to use it? Not really.

There are some free ones out there (but you get what you pay for). for example:

http://www.codeplex.com/datadictionary

No comments:

Post a Comment